Parking Management Policies and the Effectiveness of Public Policy Solutions

For years, Portuguese public institutions, such as hospitals, offer free parking for employees, patients and visitors. Due to the economic pressure that the country is facing, public institutions are now being pressured to charge for parking. Such measure has been socially contested as free parking has been interpreted as a labor right. However, it is a fact that public institutions cannot keep buying additional areas to supply increasing parking needs. Along this paper, authors evaluate 4 alternative scenarios for parking management, demonstrating that it is possible to do more with fewer resources; there is to say, increase mobility with less consumption of resources. Using a real case study from a hospital area located in Algarve (Portugal), authors will perform an analysis of the effects of four parking management scenarios in terms of traffic and environment pollution. Those results will support the monetary quantification of the environmental externalities costs. The comparative results revealed that scenarios requiring the use of more resources and implying higher public expenditure are worst in terms of traffic, environment and externalities. When parking systems become controlled and restricted, the referring effects worsen, on the immediate term, with additional driving costs for users on the network up to 560 euros/workday, environmental externalities costs up to 102 euros/workday and CO2 emissions increasing up to 4,6 kg/workday.