Utrecht

The city of Utrecht has implemented three Park & Ride areas on the edge of the city, which are designed to allow city visitors to park their car and continue their journey to the city centre by public transport or shared mobility.

Currently, only approximately 30% of the users use the P&R as intended: parking their car and taking public transport to the city centre. The large majority of users parks their car and then walks to nearby offices.

We expect that this low share of ‘intended use’ can be attributed to a suboptimal customer journey. We often hear from users that the system can be quite complicated to use, both in terms of the actual trip planning beforehand, tariff structures, connection to public transport, wayfinding, etc.

As part of the city’s Mobility Plan 2040 (established in 2021), the number of on-street car parking spaces is aimed to reduce by 0.5% to 1% per year, freeing up inner city space and promoting sustainable urban mobility. As a counter balance, we are hoping to increase occupancy of the existing P&R facilities by improving accessibility for city visitors.

We also have some developments of the P&R system planned, for which an optimal customer journey is essential. This is, for example, the addition of shared mobility to the P&R product and parking at the P&R for inhabitants of Utrecht.

Desired situation

• User feedback: Increased knowledge about the reasons citizens use or do not use P&R
• Testing of hardware and/or software: Enhanced parking validation, route planning support, easy-to-use mobile app, improved signage, and/or other tangible measures to make intended use P&R more accessible and appealing such that Utrecht can implement the successful measures on a wider scale
• Optimised P&R connectivity: Improved connectivity of P&R facilities and systems to manage existing P&R sites.
• Roadmap for scaling: a plan on how we can scale the solution to other P&Rs, what are the necessary steps