Design of a car-free city center

The goal of the project is to identify the optimal configuration of a fringe parking system with accelerated moving walkway.

A car-free city center is a valuable solution for decreasing traffic congestion and CO2 emissions, and improving active mobility and quality of life. To achieve these goals, one of the biggest challenges is the relocation of parking places scattered in the inner district, which cause cruising for available parking as well as car inflows. A possible solution is a “fringe parking” system, which groups parking into a limited number of spots on the border of the district. However, this may decrease the level of accessibility moving the parking away from the final destinations. The key idea of this research is to use “accelerated moving walkway” (AMW), a novel transport system, in combination with a fringe parking system to design a car-free city center with high accessibility.

The goal of the research is to identify the optimal configuration of a fringe parking system with AMWs. The main methodologies are network design optimization and behavioral demand modeling. The research is expected to contribute to methodological developments in the traffic assignment and network design fields, as well as urban policy developments.

This research project lasts two years. It is conducted by the Transport and Mobility Laboratory, directed by Prof. Michel Bierlaire, in collaboration with Technical University of Munich. It is sponsored by the EuroTech Postdoc Programme.

Principal investigator Prof. Michel Bierlaire
Project manager Yuki Oyama
Sponsor EuroTech Postdoc Programme
Period 2018-20
Laboratory TRANSP-OR
External partner Technical University of Munich
Collaboration TRACE