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Research and innovation

Smarter parking for sustainable cities

Using public space for parking can be fraught. Policymakers need to balance the quality of life of people who live in cities as well as provide adequate, sustainable levels of parking. But good parking management can actually free up public space and make cities more attractive.  

Municipal policymakers have tended to address parking issues in a reactive manner. When faced with a lack of parking spaces, for example, many towns and cities have simply increased the number of parking spaces. 

Sixteen cities, from Norway to Albania, teamed up to demonstrate the benefits of smartly managed parking and share their findings and benefits. 

The cities identified and implemented strategic parking management measures which had an immediate impact.  

Best practice included ensuring that revenues from parking fees and fines are invested into sustainable urban mobility. Citizen participation in developing parking management measures also helped in ensuring acceptance of and compliance with new measures.  

In general, 88 measures were implemented across the cities, 55 000 parking spots were regulated for the first time and over 3000 parking spots were scrapped to be used for other purposes, which saved €2.4 million of parking subsidies per year. Reducing subsidies for parking spaces, while charging for existing parking in the form of fees or fines, helped to generate income for municipalities.  

The work aimed to free on average 10% of public space currently used for parking and invest at least 10% of parking revenues into sustainable transport.  

The work also resulted in the ParkPAD audit tool which allows cities to review, prioritise and update parking policies. 16 audits were carried out as part of the project identifying where new and improved parking measures could be implemented.  

The audit tool will outlive the project and guarantees that European cities can benefit from the knowledge of the project through an auditing process.  

Fact and figures

  • Parking management is recognised as one of the most underdeveloped areas in sustainable urban mobility planning policies
  • An estimated 15-20 % of smaller and medium-sized European cities still have no regulated parking in place

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