Trip generation and parking demand of suburban mosques in the greater Cape Town, Western Cape

Abstract

Research was done to determine the trip generation and parking demand of mosques in the greater Cape Town area of the Western Cape. The research focused on mosques in suburban environments. The mosques are split into two categories: mosques that are designated to host the congregational Friday midday prayer in addition to the daily prayers and mosques that only host the daily prayers. Surveys were conducted at such mosques and relationships between the number of vehicles generated and parked at the mosques and the characteristics of the mosques and their surrounding areas were determined. A resulting trip generation rate and parking demand rate were determined for the mosques. For mosques that host the Friday midday prayer, the peak hour occurred between 12:45 and 13:45 on a Friday. The vehicle trip generation rates were found to be 1.1 per Muslim household outside of walking distance to the mosque, 0.40 per prayer space available inside the mosque, 55 trips per 100 square meters of prayer floor space inside the mosque and 0.42 trips per worshipper inside the mosque. For mosques that do not host the Friday midday prayer, the peak trip generation occurred in the Saturday evening. The vehicle trip generation rates were found to be 0.06 per prayer space available inside the mosque and 8.6 per 100 square meters of prayer floor space inside the mosque. The parking demand was found to be equal to the trip generation rates of the mosques as the typical vehicle occupation was one person and nearly all worshippers travelled by vehicle in these suburban settings. The results contribute to the understanding of the traffic characteristics of mosques, but should not be applied to other metropolitan areas without taking into consideration local travel demand and mode choice characteristics.