In today’s environment, buzzing with mobility services, those authorities responsible for organising transport are using the whole concept of "parking" to:
- promote the emergence of new ways of using the car and the bicycle;
- encourage activity around urban logistics;
- contribute to the protection of air quality as defined by the LAURE law.
However, there is a significant gap between the technical and regulatory conditions governing the design and implementation of urban parking policies, and local authorities’ambitions. This report has been produced in order to analyse that gap, by a working group set up by the General Commission Strategy and Forecasting and presided by Olivier Paul-Dubois-?Taine.
Today, local authorities do not have the tools necessary to organise parking solutions appropriate to local specificities, based on stable, predictable revenues. They do not have the means to verify that parking is duly paid for or to enforce payment; both of which are necessary for efficient organisation of parking.
The implementation of parking policy is difficult – there are even inconsistencies – on the one hand because responsibilities are split between urban travel policies and local parking regulation, and on the other hand because the legal tools for regulation and enforcement are not entirely fit for purpose. The inconsistencies are due to contradictions between the goals of urban travel planning, and the local regulation and pricing measures decided on in each neighbourhood.
The goals of urban travel planning concern agglomeration-scale organisation of mobility, under the responsibility of the urban transport organisation authority; whereas the neighbourhood measures come under the responsibility of the municipal police force. Further inconsistencies are due to the lack of a link between state-?owned parking solutions (on-street and in state-owned carparks) and private, commercial parking solutions (subject to town planning rules).
Further inconsistencies are due to the lack of technical and legal means to enforce locally drawn-up parking rules. Inefficiency in enforcement can lead to organisation issues or even to a loss of credibility for the local system. A proposal to decriminalise parking is currently in the final stages of its passage through parliament, as part of the draft legislation on the modernisation of public territorial intervention and affirmation of large cities. That proposal is a key step in the definition of remodelled policy.
The first thing to be done is the design and management of agglomeration-scale organisation of parking. That organisation is pivotal for urban travel policies and for the enhancement of public space.
A coordinated parking policy would mean better use of public space both from an economic and a social point of view, through the rationalisation of its use and the improvement of local living environments. The key objectives would be to take back public space for new economic and social purposes, and to make sure the possibilities are suited to the various categories of users (mobile professionals, car-sharers, powered two-wheelers etc.).
To guarantee overall consistency, the authority responsible for this policy would have to be the urban transport organisation authority.
An intermunicipal technical parking service, set up by the urban transport organisation authority, would be the direct link between the agglomeration-scale goals and their neighbourhood-scale application. It would cover all of the actions necessary for the "parking chain" to work properly. This technical department, under the authority of local councillors, would be responsible for:
- organising a system to monitor local parking requirements, both public and private;
- exploring appropriate technical, regulatory and pricing systems concerning the regulation and management of public space allocated to parking, the development and management of off-street public car parks, the setting-up andmonitoring of contracts mutualised private car parks available, etc.;
- developping and maintaining technical facilities;
- the enforcement of regulations and the security of public parking both on and off-street;
- the setting-up and management of a general system to keep users informed. The diagram below shows a summary of the organisational framework proposed.
Translated by: Vanessa Stone for the Summary and Promolang for the Benchmark
