A Proportional Allocation Model for Parking Reservation Systems Considering Entrance Capacity Constraints.

Parking reservation systems allocate large parking flows to popular parking lots, which may increase the queue length and waiting time at the entrances of those parking lots. To alleviate or even solve the queuing problem, this article proposes a moving amendment method to determine the allowable parking flow entering parking lots at each allocation time. Based on this, a system-oriented proportional allocation model is formulated with the consideration of parking lot entrance capacity constraints. With the proportional allocation model, the parking flow assigned to a parking lot is proportional to the entrance capacity of the parking lot. Then, an agent-based simulation is introduced to investigate the performance of the proportional allocation model. Finally, the simulation result of an empirical case study in the Wujiaochang central business district in Shanghai, China, shows that compared with an ordinary allocation scheme without the consideration of entrance capacity constraints, the proportional allocation model has potential to decrease the queue length and waiting time at parking lot entrances. The proposed proportional allocation model may assist in the design and operation of parking reservation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]