On-street parking manoeuvres and their effects on design

Vehicle manoeuvres when entering or leaving on-street parking can be a contributory factor to causing congestion. Little explicit attention has been given to these manoeuvres and their indirect potential effects on the moving traffic. In the design of new on-street parking facilities, or in carrying out improvements to existing ones, the aim should be to reduce the time required to conduct these parking manoeuvres which results in temporary disturbance to the traffic stream. This study describes the characteristics of vehicle on-street parking manoeuvres based on data collected from two sites with different on-street parking layouts. The results indicate that parking involving reversing requires longer manoeuvring times. Reversing is always needed in the case of angle parking in order to complete the parking or unparking manoeuvre. This is undesirable especially when reversing takes place while the road is operating under high levels of traffic flow. Suggestions were made for the design of parking stalls depending on traffic conditions and vehicle composition