Structured and underground parking

The problem

Searching for a space at the kerb generates traffic, and on-street parking reduces the usable width for circulation. Closing streets without offering parking alternatives worsens both problems.

The intervention

Multi-storey and underground car parks at the gateways of centres and beneath squares and disused areas, with dynamic guidance to free spaces and exits designed not to reload the network. Structured parking is the piece that makes any surface restriction sustainable.

Where it works

Historic centres with disorderly parking, commercial and hospital areas, attractors with a chronic shortage of spaces.

What to measure

Average time spent searching for parking, occupancy by time band, vehicles circulating empty.

Guiding rule

Prior study: no increase in travel time and no overlap of flows. Verification afterwards with the Travel Time Index.

This describes a family of interventions: costs, feasibility and impacts must be assessed case by case with local surveys and a network model.