An assessment of Park & Ride in Gothenburg - A case study on the effect of Park & Ride on congestion and how to increase its attractiveness

Abstract: Traffic congestion is with environmental pollution one of the main cost externalities caused by an increased usage of cars in many cities in the last decades. In many ways, traffic congestion impacts the everyday life of both drivers and citizens. In this thesis, the authors study how one solution designed to tackle congestion, the Park & Ride service, is currently used in the city of Gothenburg, where it is referred as Pendelparkering. This scheme allows commuters to park their car outside the city and then use public transport to their destination, thus avoiding having more cars in the city centre and reducing congestion. The goal is to know to what extent it helps solving the problem of congestion as well as how it can be ameliorated to make it more attractive. In order to do so, an analysis of the theory on Park & Ride and traffic congestion is performed, including a benchmark of three cities using the system and different views on its effectiveness in reducing congestion. Then, an empirical study relating to the City of Gothenburg is realized. The challenges around Park & Ride and the way different stakeholders organise themselves to ensure the service is provided in a satisfying way are thoroughly investigated. Interviews with experts and users, on-site observations and secondary data collection were used as different approaches to answer these questions. The main conclusions of the thesis are that in the case of Gothenburg, Park & Ride plays a relevant role in helping reducing congestion, considering the infrastructure available and the commuting patterns of workers. However, even though the general satisfaction is high, the lack of space available came as the most important challenge. The authors therefore elaborated a solution following a Design Thinking approach in partnership with the innovation platform Coboom, as a suggestion to how digital tools could be used in Park & Ride to improve urban mobility in Gothenburg, but also potentially in other cities.