On-street parking search: A UK local authority perspective

Vehicles searching for parking create an environmental and economic impact. Despite negative externalities for individual drivers and society as a whole, there is a dearth of research in the area of parking search from the perspective of local government authorities. The aim of this paper is to ascertain the perceptions of local authority policymakers in relation to parking search. City and county council officers within the East Midlands area of the United Kingdom indicate a lack of recorded evidence regarding the volume of vehicles searching for parking, which creates an issue both in terms of establishing the existence of parking search and in quantifying the level of the problem. However, council officers express consensus in the view that on-street parking search is more likely to occur within peripheral urban areas away from the core city center, as such areas may be lacking in parking facilities of the type that are typically provided in central urban areas, such as large off-street surface car parks or multi-story parking facilities. Local council officers perceive that parking search is more prevalent in larger market towns that attract a large number of visitors for shopping and personal business purposes but that are not able to provide sufficient parking supply to meet peak period demand.