Car owners’ willingness to reside in a car restricted residential area: A stated choice experiment to assess the effect of parking arrangements and the physical environment on the willingness of car owners to move to a car restricted residential area

This study's objective is to assess the effect of parking arrangements and the physical environment of a car restricted residential area on car owners’ willingness to move to a car restricted residential area compared to a conventional residential area. A car restricted area in this study is distinguished as a visually car-free area, in which access to vehicles is restricted and car parking is either provided in-building, underground or at the edge of the neighbourhood, but there is no attempt to restrict car use or ownership. The preferences regarding seven variables affecting car restricted residential choice were studied: (1) walking time to the car, (2) type of car parking facility, (3) monthly parking costs, (4) type of building, (5) liveliness level, (6) amount of facilities, and (7) the degree of green areas. A stated preference (SP) survey was used to determine which characteristics affect this preference, and to what extent. The results indicate that only a few car owners are willing to move to a car restricted residential area over a conventional residential area. Overall, the walking time to car parking significantly harms to the willingness to move to a car restricted residential area, while the physical environment of a car restricted residential seems to be of less importance. This implies that the physical environment is only to a limitate extent able to compensate for distant car parking in these residential areas. However, future research may increase the understanding into car owners’ willingness to move to a car restricted residential area by scrutinising people’s underlying association towards car restricted residential areas