Impact of on-street parking on level-of-service of undivided urban roads: a case study

Common parking options include on-street parking, which is popular for its effective use of space and convenience for drivers by enabling them to leave their vehicles closer to their destinations. On-street parking has benefits as well drawbacks that also vary widely with circumstances. Urban transport planners today are often confused about when to allow on-street parking ensuring its benefits outweigh the drawbacks. The decision cannot be made until the Level-of-Service (LOS) of the road in the presence of on-street parking is predicted which is an under-researched area as per the literature survey. In this regard, the current study conceptualized a new Measure of Effectiveness (MOE) namely, ‘Lateral Flexibility’ (LF) to assess the impact of on-street parking on LOS of undivided urban roads. LF assesses the LOS of a road from a maneuverability perspective and was found effective in capturing the impact of on-street parking on LOS, unlike other existing MOEs. An LF-based LOS criteria was proposed using the K-mean clustering approach. The previous studies considered on-street parking as a binary variable; either present (1) or absent (0) while the present study went to a further extent by considering a varying intensity of on-street parking with a range 0.15-1.92 m of parking width. The LF was found to decrease with the increase in parking width. Subsequently, a linear empirical model was developed to predict the LF and LOS of an undivided urban road for any given parking width. The outcome of the present study will help the road authorities to decide whether to allow on-street parking ensuring the minimum satisfactory LOS.