Solving parking issues: a case study of Abu Dhabi city

Abu Dhabi has grown tremendously over a brief period of time. With this rapid growth there are usually growing pains. Knowing that the city would be of significant size and densely populated the road system was constructed with high capacities. Although these considerations were made for the movement of vehicles, it seems that the storage of these same vehicles was not given the same level of consideration. The road system was designed, but early on parking requirements was not enforced. Over the past several years, the Emirate has made attempts to correct vehicle storage or parking issues. The Department of Transport in Abu Dhabi prepared the Abu Dhabi Parking Strategy, which was comprehensive in scope as it documented current characteristics of parking from a supply/demand standpoint as well as a planning and policy standpoint (legislation and regulation). The strategy identified current and potential future issues, and provided an action plan to correct existing problems and mitigate potential negative impacts in the future. To date, parking management system which known as MAWAQiF, has had the greatest impact on parking with broad reach of parking operations and parking enforcement