Roles of factors in simulation of parking guidance and information systems

The Parking Guidance and Information (PGI) system is an important application of Intelligent Transport System (ITS), which has been shown to be an effect service for traffic information and parking management. The roadside Variable Message Sign (VMS) board has been the usual media for the publication of parking information in early PGI systems, and its performance over the years has been studied via simulations andquestionnaire surveys. However, survey results show significant discrepancies across various traffic networks in different areas. More recently, parking information services have become available on other media such as mobile and in-vehicle devices. In contrast to VMS-based systems, PGI systems based on new media, especially the in-vehicle classof devices, have not been studied separately.This thesis aims to conduct research into the performance of PGI systems based on invehicle devices, by simulating and comparing a VMS-based PGI system with a Vehicle On-Board Device (VOBD)-based PGI system. A specially designed simulator utilising a routing algorithm known as the Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol in computer networks, has been created in MATLAB. The simulation minimises the influence of specific structures of traffic networks that may be found in some networks, but not others. This is done by simulating a grid-based road network where the capacities of parking stations and their geographic distribution are randomly allocated within specific zones, and the parking demand in each run of simulations is variable load. The results of simulations, including the information reliability, reduction of travel time, demand on on-street parking and the utilisation rates of parking stations, are analysed for multiple scenarios where the compliance rate, the information update policy and thestrategy of human behaviour are varied. The analyses reveal a significant advantage of VOBD-based PGI systems over VMS-based PGI systems in terms of the quality of information and the reduction of travel time. At the same time, the analyses highlight the limitations of a PGI system when the demand and supply of parking stations is not appropriately balanced