Effects of Active Mobility Act and Parking Places (Amendment) Bill on active mobility device parking characteristics

Abstract

This project investigates the effects of the policy of Parking Places (Amendment) Bill on active mobility device parking characteristics at authorised and illegal parking areas in vicinity of Boon Lay Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station. Under the geo-fencing technology, shared-bike users would be subject to park shared-bikes only within authorised areas in time to come, potentially causing the increase in parking demand within bike parking areas, thereby leading to parking demand exceeding the design parking capacity of bike parking areas.

The studied authorised parking areas contain bike racks, which have a limited parking capacity for active mobility devices (AMDs). The bill stimulates the parking redistribution effect of AMDs, successfully tackling the widespread problem of indiscriminate parking within the Boon Lay study area. However, the influx of AMDs parked within parking areas caused excess parking demand within studied parking areas. The issue of excess parking demand gives rise to a parking congestion effect, inevitably encouraging users to park indiscriminately again at premises of parking areas.

To improve the efficiency of parking areas, a study on deadstock (i.e. unmoved AMDs parked over a prolonged duration) within authorised parking areas was conducted. Upon evaluating the impacts of deadstock on bike rack utilisation, it was denoted that the presence of deadstock occupied 18% of bike racks of a potential geofence area, contributing towards the parking congestion effect as this promoted improper parking within the potential geofenced area. A comparison of results was then cross referred to a similar project studied at Lakeside and Chinese Garden MRT station premises, defining how differences in demographical factors change AMD parking characteristics. A finding of increased population density and land-use connectivity promotes the severity of indiscriminate parking within a region.

Recommendations for further improvements and future studies on the subject matter are included in the report.