Understanding the utilisation of park and ride facilities (Cape Town - 2012)

Abstract

Paper presented at the 32nd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 8-11 July 2013 "Transport and Sustainable Infrastructure", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

The City of Cape Town embarked on a policy that put “Public Transport First” relative to the trend in recent decades to prioritise transport planning for private car users. In doing so the City adopted a Travel Demand Management (TDM) strategy in 2006, which included the upgrading and extension of Park and Ride (P&R) facilities at Rail stations as one of the six key strategies for implementation. In preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup (FWC) held in Cape Town, a major project was rolled out to upgrade and expand a number of P&R facilities across the Metro. Early on in this project it was realised that the P&R upgrades would benefit more than just the car drivers originally targeted, and public transport vehicles as well as pedestrians and cyclists were accommodated in the upgraded areas. This study set out to determine the extent of different feeder modes to Rail stations, or P&R facilities, as they are often referred to. It found that the numbers of people parking their car to catch commuter trains are relatively small compared to the total number of commuters accessing the rail system. This finding highlighted the inefficiency of spending funds for parking as a feeder mode and raises the need for a detailed assessment of actual commuter needs at each station before implementing a generic P&R solution.