Minimizing Conflict in Parking lots

s ociety’s demand for quality is influencing the environment in which people sho~, work, are entertained, and relax. Businesses are continually striving to upgrade their service and increase their return on investment. The transition between the transport system and most activities is a parking lot. It is therefore not surprising that the quality of parking lots is increasing in importance. There have been progressive improvements in this quality over time. The initial improvements included a firm surface to drive (and walk) on, drainage, clear line markings, adequate road geometry, and lighting, and more recently, improvements related to aesthetics (McCluskey 1987). The development of procedures to quantify the performance of parking lots is long overdue, and development relating to the vehicle and pedestrian environment inside the lot will follow next. Management requires clearly defined measures of performance that need to be quantifiable and representative. Discussion about quantifiable measures of the performance of parking lots, however, is rare. Rather parking lot design is based on folk law, designers experience, and a set of standards outlining the size of parking components. There are, however, a considerable number of measures of overall performance, including utilization (accumulation, probability of finding a parking space); travel time (average, minimum, search); delay (total, stopped, entry, exit, parking); conflict (vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to pedestrian); pollution (air, noise, oil); and energy conservation (fuel consumption). The importance users place on each of these measures requires further research, but preliminary observation indicates that the level of conflict and the probability of finding a parking space are ranked highly. The probability of finding a parking space has been addressed by Young (1986) and Erlang (Cox and Smith 1961), but the level of conflict has not been addresed. The focus of this article is on the level of conflict.