On the 21st of November 2013, Spark published an official press release about the use of inner-city parking spaces (Spark, 2013). Spark is a Dutch consultancy firm specialised in the field of parking. This press release states that between 2008 and 2012, the use of inner-city parking spaces decreased with 10%. This finding is based on data about 19 inner-city parking areas. This press release fully contradicts the general view Dutch municipalities have about the modern day parking situation in Dutch cities. Compared with the CBS consumption index, the average amount of sold parking hours decreased with 10% while the CBS consumption index decreased 3,7% over the same time horizon (figure 1). Spark (2013) claims that this shocking fact is a very important indication for municipalities to be careful with parking facility expansions. Expansion of parking facilities in cities is a very expensive affair and the invested money goes down the drain if the usage of these facilities decrease rapidly. In this case it is wise to focus on optimizing the usage of already existing capacity instead of increasing the parking capacity of inner city regions. With this research, Spark shows the importance of monitoring parking data in inner-city regions. The finding of Spark about the usage of parking facilities in inner city regions is very important for designing municipal parking polices, but the most important insight is still missing. The website of ‘’Verkeersnet’’ published a similar message, but in this article a very important sentence is added. ‘’Verkeersnet’’ mentioned that: ‘’this research doesn’t give an
On the 21st of November 2013, Spark published an official press release about the use of inner-city parking spaces (Spark, 2013). Spark is a Dutch consultancy firm specialised in the field of parking. This press release states that between 2008 and 2012, the use of inner-city parking spaces decreased with 10%. This finding is based on data about 19 inner-city parking areas. This press release fully contradicts the general view Dutch municipalities have about the modern day parking situation in Dutch cities. Compared with the CBS consumption index, the average amount of sold parking hours decreased with 10% while the CBS consumption index decreased 3,7% over the same time horizon (figure 1). Spark (2013) claims that this shocking fact is a very important indication for municipalities to be careful with parking facility expansions. Expansion of parking facilities in cities is a very expensive affair and the invested money goes down the drain if the usage of these facilities decrease rapidly. In this case it is wise to focus on optimizing the usage of already existing capacity instead of increasing the parking capacity of inner city regions. With this research, Spark shows the importance of monitoring parking data in inner-city regions. The finding of Spark about the usage of parking facilities in inner city regions is very important for designing municipal parking polices, but the most important insight is still missing. The website of ‘’Verkeersnet’’ published a similar message, but in this article a very important sentence is added. ‘’Verkeersnet’’ mentioned that: ‘’this research doesn’t give an