IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute

Frampark is a co-funded research project between IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and the Framtiden Group, with Chalmers University of Technology and the City of Gothenburg as project partners. The project has been carried out in response to an increasing need for housing construction in Gothenburg and a growing ambition to use existing land areas more efficiently, including existing parking spaces. When new construction takes place on existing parking areas, the municipality requires that parking be replaced to a certain extent.

Current assessment methods are largely based on present parking demand and parking ratios, which in many cases lead to an overestimation of future needs. As a result, property owners and developers are required to build costly parking facilities that often have low utilization rates. The purpose of the project has been to develop a forward-looking and practically applicable method for assessing the need for replacement parking when building on existing parking areas. The method is intended to enable an assessment of future parking demand without requiring that demand-management measures first be implemented. The work has been carried out through a combination of literature studies, legal analysis, workshop processes, and the collection and analysis of data from several case study areas in Gothenburg. The case studies have been a central part of the project and have focused on areas where changes in parking conditions have already been implemented, such as the introduction of residential parking permits, changes in pricing levels, and construction on existing parking areas. The analysis shows that car ownership and parking demand are influenced by several interacting factors, where access to parking and parking costs are central. Results from the case studies indicate that changes in pricing and allocation models can lead to reduced car ownership and thus a lower need for parking over time. At the same time, existing methods do not sufficiently capture these relationships, contributing to an overestimation of parking demand in many cases.

The project and the developed method also highlight issues related to unregulated on-street parking. The results emphasize the importance of basing assessments on car ownership and actual use rather than solely on standard values and historical norms. By analyzing how car ownership develops in areas where parking measures have been implemented, a more reliable basis is created for assessing future parking demand. The method developed within the project aims to integrate these insights and provide a more realistic and forward-looking basis for decisions on replacement parking. The method is developed based on conditions in Gothenburg but is considered applicable to other cities with similar characteristics.

The method includes the following steps: - Deduction for legally regulated parking spaces - Determination of existing car ownership - Adjustment for price elasticity - Adjustment for changes in accessibility and access to car-sharing services - Replacement of visitor parking - Supplementation for company vehicles Overall, Frampark contributes to increased knowledge about the relationships between parking, mobility, and car ownership, as well as to the development of more resource-efficient and sustainable parking solutions in the context of urban development.