As Saudi Arabia’s sprawling capital city Riyadh prepares to begin operation of the first lines of its long-awaited metro system, authorities and researchers are now faced with the task of getting the Kingdom’s citizens used to riding it.
One paper from the Saudi-based think tank KAPSARC explores the possibility of adding parking fees into the mix in order to encourage riders to ditch the car and take the train.
The paper, entitled, Can Parking Fees Influence People To Use the Metro Instead of Cars in Riyadh City?, explores whether new car parking fees would encourage people to switch from driving to using the metro.
“We investigate this question separately for five areas of Riyadh, namely, the north, south, east, west, and central areas. It has been hypothesized that people in Riyadh will drive less if new car parking fees impact travelers’ car usage in most of these areas…We focus on car parking fees because cars are used for approximately 92% of trips in Riyadh.”
The commentary paper is based on a survey of results from a series of questions conducted by the authors, and is filled with interesting data on Riyadh’s citizens and how they get around, including data points like public transit preferences by location in the city and more.
“In summary, new parking fees, reduced travel times, the lowest metro fares and shorter wait times are leading factors in car-owning households’ decisions to change transport modes. Given this study’s focus, we discuss only the importance of parking fees. We found that new parking fees are important catalysts for switching to public transit in most areas of Riyadh,” the paper finds.
[Click here to download and read the full paper from KAPSARC]
