OMI Policy Submission: Draft Parking Policy for Bengaluru City

By Snehil Singh, Yeshwanth Reddy and Aishwarya Raman

Background

Ola Mobility Institute’s (OMI) policy submission presents comments and recommendations made to Directorate of Urban Land Transport’s (DULT) notification of March 2020- “Inviting suggestion/comments on draft Parking Policy for Bengaluru from public.”

Policy-Wise Comments and Recommendations

• Policy 1 — : Preparation of area level parking management plans

OMI Comments and Recommendations

A.1. As per a 2017 report, public transport’s share of motorised trips in Bengaluru was just at 41.5%, much lesser than cities such as Mumbai and Chennai. Therefore, even though the policy captures the process of Area level parking management plans to optimise parking districts, it should also focus on promoting shared mobility including public transportation, intermediate public transportation, and micro-mobility through the following measures:

• Public transport is seen as an antidote to the demand for parking. The government can thus help build public transit infrastructure at the design and planning stage , in such a way that it can be integrated with intermediate public transport to minimise the need for parking itself. Planning Authorities could create zones around mass transit stations to help both the government and businesses optimise parking supply. Pickup and drop-off points at public transit stations too should be planned and integrated with public transit stations and transfer hubs.
• Governments may start by debundling parking from building bye laws so that they can be included in the larger pool of parking space. This intervention solves the problem in two ways. Firstly, it contributes to “Area Management Approach” and secondly it subjects particular land parcels to market players.
• Promote use of modes of shared mobility and vehicle pooling
• Dedicated curb spaces should be provided for pick-up and drop-off by intermediate public transportation at public transit stops, commercial areas and office spaces.

A.2. Area Parking Plans may mandate parking districts to build boundary walls and other permanent structures for the parking space to insulate the parking space from regular traffic and unauthorised parking movements. This would also enable swifter monitoring and enforcement and also ensure safety of the pedestrians.

Example : Barcelona has also been removing parking and only allowing streets where only taxis, residents, and delivery vans can enter to ensure limited vehicles can park inside, but no through-traffic is allowed.

A.3. In areas with mixed land uses, parking can often be shared among different users during different times of the days of the week. The said arrangements can be enforced through zoning codes and contract agreements among landowners to eliminate redundant supply. The Bengaluru Master Plan 2015 and draft Transit-Oriented Development Policy ( 2019) envisage dense, mixed land use development along transit corridors. The development should provision employment centres, housing, commerce and supporting services within a walkable distance from the transit corridor and its stations. This shared parking would help reduce parking demands significantly.

Example : The mixed-use land use approach in the city of Indianapolis in the United States reduced its parking provisions by 53% from the standard regulations.

A.4 In many areas where auto-rickshaw and cab-drivers live, due to small size of lands and houses, implementation of parking within residential premises may not be possible and any charges for on-street parking will impact them economically. Therefore for drivers of all public services vehicles, exemptions to be provided as they already pay permit fees to the government.

A.5 In both on-street and off-street parking areas, a fixed percentage for example 10% to be reserved free of cost for public service vehicles like auto-rickshaws and cabs. This will ensure their easy availability and encourage people to move away from private vehicles if ease of hailing is provided.

• Policy 2 -: Charges for Parking

Clause 5.2.3. Hence, parking should not be provided free of cost and utilization of any designated public parking space shall be charged the true cost of parking (land & operational costs to begin with and subsequently adding environmental and social impact costs built into the parking price) from users wanting to avail parking directly on a use basis.

OMI Comments and Recommendations

B.1. The parking charge framework doesn’t mention differential pricing with respect to income groups and doesn’t provide for relaxation for such a population. Many in Bengaluru are engaged in providing shared mobility services, micro-mobility services and delivery services. They require space for parking their auto rickshaws, bikes, tricycles, cabs etc. Existing developments may provide adequate parking along with relaxation on the parking norms and charges depending on the income category and type of the vehicle. Both on-street and off-street parking charges for shared mobility services must be relaxed to encourage the adoption of public transit, intermediate public transport, micro-mobility, and disincentivise the ownership and usage of private vehicles.

B.2 Dedicated and free parking to be provided for drivers of public service vehicles near utilities such as public toilets, currently no parking space is available at these utilities.

B.3 For on-street parking for visitors in residential areas, mandatory paid parking to be introduced to discourage use of private vehicles. If the area parking plan enables gradual shifting of parking from on-street to within premises in residential areas, it is unlikely that visitor parking would be included within premises. This also provides an additional revenue generation opportunity.

Clause 5.2.4.4 — Pricing to discourage parking near mass transport stations in order to facilitate transit supportive functions (such as bus bay, IPT stand, cycle stands or pick up/drop off facilities) in the immediate surroundings of a transit hub.

B.4. Multimodal integration should be prioritised to discourage use of private vehicles. Public Transit including Bus and Metro services, Intermediate Public Transport, Micro-mobility services, and other Feeder services should all be integrated. These services should be extended to all localities such that people are required to walk less than 250 m to access transport stations.

B.5. Pick up and drop off points as well as parking lots at every intermodal transport point or transfer hubs, and at every metro station should be made available for feeder services.

Clause 5.3.3.3 Promoting para transit, NMT and shared mobility parking: Non-motorised and electric shared mobility are emerging modes that need to be accommodated and promoted alongside bicycle and para transit parking. At least 10% of the parking space (in Passenger Car Equivalent or PCE) in each designated on-street parking should be assigned for bicycle, para-transit and other shared mobility parking.

B.6. In order to promote cleaner modes of transportation, fiscal incentives may be given to citizens and businesses for utilising the public transportation systems, intermediate public transport vehicles, NMT (micro-mobility) vehicles and electric vehicles. These incentives could be in the form of municipal tax waiver, capital subsidy.

B.7. Further, there should be designated pickup and drop off points for shared mobility vehicles in commercial or crowded areas.. These should be free-of-charge so as to incentivise the use of shared mobility and hyperlocal deliveries that offer much-required convenience to a city’s population and also caters to areas unserved and underserved by other mobility modes. Designating locations will enable the city and operators more control over the start and end location of vehicles, increases predictability for users and non-users alike, and reduces encroachment in the public right-of-way.

• Policy 8-: Adoption of technology in efficient parking management and use of data

Clause 5.8.2 All public parking related information should be integrated at a central control centre (Command Control Centre of BBMP). The civic agency shall use the data to disseminate information on availability of parking, pricing and parking restrictions, if any to users. This information could be disseminated to all users through various means like VMS boards, mobile app, web application, etc. to enable users to make informed decisions on parking choices.

OMI Comments and Recommendations

C.1. The data gathered from the central control centre can be utilised to conduct research and special studies to improve parking in congested areas.

C.2. Role of technology in implementation of on-street parking and off-street parking to be clearly laid out to reduce overhead costs of manual parking fee collection. Automatic kiosks for payment and ticketing to be installed at every parking facility and violations to be highly penalized to ensure adherence.

• Policy on Parking-as-a-service

OMI Comments and Recommendations

D.1. Parking-as-a-service must be encouraged and startups and traditional businesses must be allowed to provide parking services leveraging technology. A lot of startups already have platforms that provide ‘parking-as-a-service’ such as Get My Parking, PParkE.These businesses would feed data into the central control centre and also leverage the central repository/ data to build consumer-facing services. Overall, parking-as-a-service would enable the efficient match of parking demand with supply. Thereby easing congestion on the roads, increasing the adoption of shared mobility such as public transit, intermediate public transport, and micro-mobility. This would discourage ownership and use of private vehicles.

• Policy for Persons with Disabilities

OMI Comments and Recommendations

The policy doesn’t mention any specific provision for Persons with Disabilities. As per Census 2011, Bengaluru has 2.2 lakhs of persons with disability. The specific accessibility needs of this population should be incorporated in the parking policy.

E.1. Reserved spaces may be designated and clearly signposted for use by Persons with Disabilities. In this regard, the pedestrian pathways from the designated parking space to the point of entry should be clearly defined and accessible or mandatory parking provision to be made within the premises for Persons with Disabilities.

E.2. The pathways should meet minimum statutory requirements that allow wheelchairs to move easily. The design of the pathway should be in a way to avoid crossing vehicular routes within the site. Where this is not practicable, use should be made of curb spaces or textured surfaces for both people with visual impairments and wheelchair-dependency.

E.3. A provision for accessible parking permits may be issued by the government that provides for legal binding and helps in getting concessions on parking charges.

The draft parking policy for Bengaluru can be accessed here: http://www.urbantransport.kar.gov.in/Parking%20Policy%20Draft.pdf