Is the Curb 80% Full or 20% Empty? Assessing the Impacts of San Francisco's Parking Pricing Experiment

34 Pages Posted: 10 Oct 2013 Last revised: 7 Feb 2014

See all articles by Adam Millard-Ball

Adam Millard-Ball

University of California, Santa Cruz - Environmental Studies

Rachel Weinberger

Weinberger & Associates

Robert Cornelius Hampshire

Carnegie Mellon University

Date Written: January 30, 2014

Abstract

The city of San Francisco is undertaking a large-scale controlled parking pricing experiment. San Francisco has adopted a performance goal of 60% to 80% occupancy for its metered parking. The goal represents an heuristic performance measure intended to reduce double parking and cruising for parking, and improve the driver experience; it follows a wave of academic and policy literature that calls for adjusting on-street parking prices to achieve similar occupancy targets. In this paper, we evaluate the relationship between occupancy rules and metrics of direct policy interest, such as the probability of finding a parking space, the amount of cruising, and show how cruising and arrival rates can be simulated or estimated from hourly occupancy data. Further, we evaluate the impacts of the first two years of the San Francisco program, and conclude that rate changes have helped achieve the City’s occupancy goal and reduced cruising by 50%.

Keywords: parking policy, cruising, parking pricing, queuing theory

JEL Classification: R41, R48

Suggested Citation

Millard-Ball, Adam and Weinberger, Rachel and Hampshire, Robert Cornelius, Is the Curb 80% Full or 20% Empty? Assessing the Impacts of San Francisco's Parking Pricing Experiment (January 30, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2338230 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2338230

Adam Millard-Ball (Contact Author)

University of California, Santa Cruz - Environmental Studies ( email )

1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
United States
1-831-459-1838 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://envs.ucsc.edu/faculty/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=adammb

Rachel Weinberger

Weinberger & Associates ( email )

Brooklyn, NY
United States

Robert Cornelius Hampshire

Carnegie Mellon University ( email )

Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
United States

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