Parking and traveling
Parking and traveling (also English Park and Ride , park = "park" and ride = "drive", or in short: P + R , P & R , P + R or P&R) denotes a principle of traffic planning in which nearby of stops of public transport ( PT ) parking for cars are made, partly also motorcycles and buses. Working people in particular are given the opportunity to park their cars on the outskirts and get to the city center by public transport without traffic jams and parking problems. P + R also helps to cope with traffic problems at major events such as football games, concerts and city center festivals.
The same objective has the concept of parking and sharing (P + M), which offers road users a possibility to park so that they can drive to a destination with like-minded people in a car pool. In contrast to the traffic sign for parking and travel (English actually: park and travel ), the P + M sign can be translated as park and ride in the real sense .
Also related is the concept of bike and ride , the provision of bicycle parking facilities or mostly chargeable, rented boxes at bus stops. There are covered parking spaces or bicycle parking garages at larger train stations . The park and rail offered in long-distance transport , however, has a different objective and is not to be equated.
Structural system
A P + R facility does not differ structurally from the usual parking facilities, parking lot or parking deck ( multi-storey car park or underground car park ). The main distinguishing feature is the spatial proximity to a public transport stop, usually with special, possibly signposted access routes. The arrangement of a multi-storey car park on the side of the track system of a through station facing away from the reception building is popular , so that the overpass or the transverse tunnel leads directly into the parking facility.
Sign 362 or 316
The symbol was introduced in the Federal Republic of Germany during the second half of 1972 as a symbol for parking and traveling . The triggers for his regulation were traffic problems that had arisen during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich . In fact, on November 23, 1971, the Federal Minister of Transport issued a detailed recommendation for the installation of the sign.
The assertion that has been rumored several times in the GDR literature that the P + R symbol was introduced in West Germany under the Anglo-American name park and ride is false and apparently due to propaganda reasons.
The P + R symbol was then included in the catalog of the road traffic regulations as sign 362 . With the StVO design amendment from 1992 , the sign was given the number 316. In 2009 and finally in 2013 with the new version of the StVO, the sign for parking and traveling was deleted from the regulation. However, the sign remains in the traffic sign catalog and the associated symbol remains in the StVO. The traffic sign catalog is an annex to the general administrative regulation for road traffic regulations (VwV-StVO), which was last changed in May 2017.
- Parking-and-travel symbols in Germany
Sign 362: "Park and Travel"; the oldest P + R symbol introduced in West Germany in 1972
The additional symbol valid from 1978 in East Germany
Sign 316: the traffic sign for "Parking and Travel" that has been in effect since 1992
Representation of a public transport line with a P + R junction
Transport policy objectives
One of the political goals of P + R is to reduce vehicle traffic in metropolitan areas and to increase the proportion of public transport used in commuter traffic. The construction and operation of P + R facilities is mostly financed from taxpayers' money. In Germany, the construction of P + R facilities is funded under the Municipal Transport Financing Act.
P + R is politically not without controversy. In addition to the investment and maintenance costs of the parking spaces, it is criticized that P + R facilities, especially those on the outskirts, promote urban sprawl , as they represent an attractive offer for commuters from regions with little developed public transport. It is assumed that this will make moving out of the center more attractive and that the installation of P + R facilities is therefore counterproductive in terms of urban and traffic planning. However, many factors play a role in “urban flight”, and so it can also be argued that without P + R offers, the car that is already there would be used for direct access to the city center.
Small P + R facilities in particular achieve a hardly relevant increase in demand for local public transport: On average, a car is occupied by less than 1.5 people during rush-hour traffic (at P + R the occupancy rate is usually even lower), so that a P. + R system with 200 parking spaces can bring a maximum of 300 passengers to the train. Even a small S-Bahn station can easily reach four-digit numbers of boarders every day. In principle, P + R remains a niche offer and therefore has no major influence in terms of spatial planning. On the other hand, especially with larger facilities, the passengers lost at P + R can lead to thinning or even discontinuation of feeder (bus) lines and thus a deterioration in public transport in the area.
An example: When the Rhein-Main S-Bahn was expanded to Rodgau , 1059 parking spaces were created in new P + R facilities. The passenger gain through the expansion was however over 13,000 daily (as of February 2005). When the facility is fully utilized, only around 12% of passengers use the P + R system.
Web links
- Norbert Schmitt u. Armin Schulz: Guideline for determining requirements and planning P + R / B + R systems , Hessian State Office for Roads and Transport (www.hsvv.hessen.de) , Wiesbaden 2001 (PDF file; 1.38 MB)
- Johannes Klühspies (www.kluehspies.de) : Traffic planning evaluation of P + R
Individual evidence
- ^ Elmar Oehm: City highways. Planning, construction, operation . Bauverlag, Wiesbaden 1973, ISBN 3-7625-0506-3 . P. 19
- ↑ Recommendation of the Federal Minister for Transport of November 23, 1971. In: Straßenverkehrstechnik 1, 1972 (16th year), p. 34
- ↑ Martin Lehnert: Anglo-American in the use of language in the GDR . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-05-000985-3 . P. 36 and p. 130.
- ^ Road Traffic Regulations 2013: New traffic signs. (No longer available online.) Federal Highway Research Institute , April 2, 2013, archived from the original on December 11, 2013 ; Retrieved December 20, 2013 .
- ↑ BASt - Press - New traffic sign catalog. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 28, 2017 ; accessed on October 27, 2017 .