Zurich – Searching for a parking space causes more traffic, leads to stress and results in greater noise pollution for residents. An alternative would be dynamic pricing, says the Zurich professor Kay W. Axhausen.
Axhausen is a professor of traffic planning at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. In an article that he wrote for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper, he says that San Francisco uses a model that could be replicated in Zurich. The system uses sensors to track the occupancy of each parking space. If this figure exceeds a set value, the price is then increased in a three-month cycle. Conversely, prices are lowered for parking spaces with a low occupancy.
The system notifies users when a parking space just a few metres away is significantly cheaper than a parking space on their front doorstep. This results in parking spaces being used that would otherwise have been vacant and a more even occupancy rate. This in turn by and large eliminates the search for a parking space, says Axhausen.
“The retail industry would win because their customers could find them without losing time searching for a parking space. Individual retailers in locations with lower prices win double. Individual retailers at locations with higher prices know that their customers are no longer stressed by looking for a parking space or haven’t been prevented from shopping because of lack of parking,” said Axhausen when summarising the economic advantages of his proposal.
