Evaluating the effects of parking price and location in multi-modal transportation networks

In urban transportation, combined mode trips are increasing in importance due to current urban transportation polices which encourage the use of transit through the creation of apposite parking lots and improvements in the public transportation system. It is widely recognized that parking policy plays an important role in urban management: parking policy measures not only affect the parking system, but also generate impacts to the transport and socioeconomic system of a city. The present paper attempts to expand on previous research concerning the development of models to capture drivers' parking behavior. It introduces in the modeling structure additional variables to the ones usually employed, with which the drivers' behavior to changes in prices and distances (mainly walking) are better captured. We develop a network model that represents trips as a combination of private and transit modes. A graph representing four different modes (car, bus, metro and pedestrian) is defined and a set of free park and ride facilities is introduced to discourage the use of private cars. An algorithm that evaluates the location and the effects of the parking price variation using multi-modal shortest paths is proposed together with an application to the City of Rome. Computational results are shown.