Development of parking strategies in Kigali City.

Abstract

Parking management is an important component of contemporary travel demand management strategy. The lack of information about parkers' behavior in the Central Business District makes it difficult to develop effective parking strategies. The effectiveness of many parking strategies depends on influencing parking choice on willingness to pay parking fee or to use public transport. To understanding the factors affecting these choices is of considerable practical importance. The purpose of this study is is to understand parkers‟ behavior on willingness to pay parking fee (WTP) in the Central Business District of Kigali City, to develop number of parking strategies and hence to recommend the appropriate strategies for the City of Kigali. This project research, analysis parking choice behavior based on a stated preference (SP) dataset collected in various locations in Kigali City Center, for on-street and off street parking. The willingness to Pay (WTP) method was used to evaluate parking behavior and willingness to pay parking fees. In order to ensure unbiased collection of data, a stratified random sampling technique was used on this research. Both responsive (Stated Preference) as well as informative data were collected with the help of questionnaire surveys. Additionally, a set of parking survey methods was used to study the parking duration (turnover), the parking usage through the analysis of the parking stress in the area and the parking accumulation and occupancy. Furthermore, the parking survey data were used to forecast the parking situation in the area of study in five years to come, from 2014 to 2018. Therefore, after doing a thorough analysis about the problem, the researcher found out that the existing parking management condition was in an alarming situation and recommended that a quick action has to be taken by the concerned parties, especially for on-street parking, by referring to the findings of this research. Finally, the research also develops a number of strategies that can be used to solve a problem parking in the City of Kigali. The main strategy is to apply the 85% rule, where the higher rates should be charged on blocks with higher occupancies, and lower rates on blocks with lower occupancies.