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Parking is the act of stopping and disengaging a vehicle and usually leaving it unoccupied. Parking on one or both sides of a road is often permitted, though sometimes with restrictions. Some buildings have parking facilities for use of the buildings' users. Countries and local governments have rulesRoads in the Neo-Assyrian Empire () bore signs stating "Royal Road. Let no man lessen it." The penalty for illegal use was "death by impalement on a stake." for design and use of .
Car parking is essential to car-based travel. Cars are typically stationary around 95 percent of the time. The availability and price of car parking may support car dependency. Significant amounts of urban land are devoted to car parking; in many North American city centers, half or more of all land is devoted to car parking.
Such facilities may be on-street parking, located on the street, or off-street parking, located in a parking lot or parking garage.
Curbside parking may be parallel, angled or perpendicular parking. Parallel parking is often considered a complicated maneuver for drivers; however uses the least road width.
On-street parking can act as inexpensive traffic calming by reducing the effective width of the street.
On-street parking may be restricted for a number of reasons. Restrictions could include waiting prohibitions, which ban parking in certain areas; time restrictions; requirements to pay, e.g., at a parking meter or using a pay by phone facility, or a Parking permit, restricting parking to permit holders – often residents – only. Parking restrictions may be applied across a whole zone using a controlled parking zone or similar.
On-street parking is often criticised for being a bad use of high-value public space, especially where parking is free. In some cities, authorities have replaced parking spaces with .
Structured regimes are buildings in which vehicles can be parked, including multi-storey parking garages, underground parking, or a hybrid of the two. Such structures may be incorporated into a wider structure.
In the U.S., after the first public parking garage for motor vehicles was opened in Boston, May 24, 1898, in began to be converted into garages.Shannon Sanders McDonald: The parking garage. Design and evolution of a modern urban form, Washington 2007, p. 7-21 In cities of the Eastern US, many former livery stables, with lifts for carriages, continue to operate as garages today.
Surface regimes involve using a clear lot to provide a single level of parking. This may be a stand-alone car park or located around a building.
There is a wide international vocabulary for multi-storey parking garages. In the Midwestern United States, they are known as parking ramps. In the United Kingdom, they are known as multi-storey car parks. In the Western US, they are called parking structures. In New Zealand, they are known as parking buildings. In Canada and South Africa, they are known as parkades.
These parking areas help reduce congestion in downtown areas by encouraging park-and-ride systems, where commuters leave their vehicles in fringe car parking lots and continue their journey using public transport, shuttles, or walking routes.
Certain parking lots or garages may contain parking facilities for other vehicles, such as bicycle parking. Underneath Utrecht Central station, there is a three-storey underground bicycle park which can store 12,656 bicycles.
within car parks may be variously arranged.
In urban areas, car parks compete with each other and curbside parking spaces. Drivers do not want to walk far from where they have parked, giving car parks local monopoly power.
Rather than buying a space, motorists often pay hourly or daily fees for short-term use of a space. According to Parkopedia's 2019 Global Parking Index, the cost for 2 hours of parking in US dollars for 25 cities is as follows:
| Country | City | Price |
| $34.94 | ||
| $27.37 | ||
| $20.55 | ||
| United States | Chicago | $20.08 |
| $19.87 | ||
| $18.36 | ||
| $16.92 | ||
| $15.56 | ||
| $14.77 | ||
| $12.09 | ||
| $11.87 | ||
| $11.11 | ||
| $11.10 | ||
| $10.99 | ||
| $10.80 | ||
| United States | Baltimore | $10.45 |
| $10.10 | ||
| United States | Newark | $10.10 |
| New Zealand | Auckland | $9.77 |
| $9.69 | ||
| $9.66 | ||
| $9.56 | ||
| Canada | Toronto | $9.51 |
| United States | Seattle | $9.34 |
| Norway | Oslo | $9.25 |
The costs of parking include the construction, maintenance, and operation of parking spaces, as well as indirect environmental and social costs. The extent to which these costs are recouped by user fees, taxes, tolls, or else simply sustained through public subsidy is variable. As shown in the associated figure, when cities charge market rates for on-street parking and municipal parking garages for motor vehicles, and when bridges and tunnels are tolled for these modes, driving becomes less competitive in terms of out-of-pocket costs compared to other modes of transportation. When municipal motor vehicle parking is underpriced, and roads are not tolled, the shortfall in tax expenditures by drivers, through fuel tax and other taxes, might be regarded as a very large subsidy for automobile use: much greater than common subsidies for the maintenance of infrastructure and discounted fares for public transportation.
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"Performance parking" or variable-rate parking is based on Shoup's ideas. Electronic parking meters are used so that parking spaces in desirable locations and at desirable times are more expensive than less desirable locations. Other variations include rising rates based on the duration of parking. More modern ideas use sensors and networked parking meters that "bid up" (or down) the price of parking automatically with the goal of keeping 85–90% of the spaces in use at any given time to ensure perpetual parking availability. These ideas have been implemented in Redwood City, California and are being implemented in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
One empirical study supports performance-based pricing by analyzing the block-level price elasticity of parking demand in the SFpark context. The study suggests that block-level elasticities vary so widely that urban planners and economists cannot accurately predict the response in parking demand to a given change in price. The public policy implication is that planners should utilize observed occupancy rates in order to adjust prices so that target occupancy rates are achieved. Effective implementation will require further experimentation with and assessment of the tâtonnement process.
Municipal parking regulations introduced controls for parking on public land, often funded through parking meters. However, with the growth of car use, the supply of on-street parking became insufficient to meet demand. City centre merchants called on municipalities to subsidise car parking in the city centre to facilitate competition against new forms of car-centric commercial development.
Parking is a heavy land use. The total land area of parking in the US is at least the size of Massachusetts.
Off-street parking can be a temporary usage for a land owner to extract value from a vacant lot.
Tradeable parking allowances have been proposed for dense residential areas to reduce inequity and increase urban livability. In summary, each resident would receive an annual, fractional allowance for on-street parking. To park on the street, one must assemble a whole parking allowance by purchasing fractional allowances from others who do not own cars.
German legal principles determine that the use of public streets is for traffic, including car parking. Consequently, German motorists tend to assert a right to park for free on the public highway.
Fees for yearly residential parking permits vary widely between cities: the city government of Bonn charges €360, while Munich and Chemnitz each charge €30, and Berlin only €10.
As the number of users of the large supermarket chain increased in Korea, the utilization rate of the traditional market sharply decreased. Accordingly, each local government has a large-scale parking lot near the traditional market and provides discounts to users.
The low birth rate problem in Korea is serious, and there is a lot of support for it.
At UK airports, it is rare for employees to pay for their car parking. Generally, the airport authority will charge for staff permits, but these permits will be purchased by employers and the cost not passed on to staff. Staff are generally more willing to park at a site away from the airport than passengers too.
Cruising is an economic decision, with the cost of parking dominant in determining cruising behaviour. This is grounded in the principle that drivers will only cruise if the cost of cruising is lower than the savings of not parking in available chargeable spaces. Drivers are more likely to cruise if on-street parking is cheaper than off-street parking, the costs of fuel are cheap, the driver wishes to park for longer, the driver is alone in the car and the driver's time is not valuable to them. Cruising can be diminished if the cost of on-street parking is set equal to the cost of off-street parking.
Automated Parking Guidance systems present drivers with dynamic information on parking within controlled areas (like parking garages and parking lots). The systems combine traffic monitoring, communication, processing and variable message sign technologies to provide the service.
and parking booking platforms that help drivers find parking take different approaches have emerged.
Some have mobile apps associated with the in-car system that can locate the car or indicate the last place it was parked. Cars with Internavi communicate to each other, indicating recently vacated spots.
San Francisco uses a system called SFpark, which has sensors embedded in the roadway. It allows drivers to find parking via mobile app, website, or SMS, and includes "smart" and garages that use variable pricing based on time and location to keep approximately 15% of parking spaces open. Some South Boston spots also have sensors, so users of an app called Parker can find vacancies.
Ford Motor Company is developing a system called Parking Spotter, which allows vehicles to upload parking spot information into the cloud for other drivers to access.
Parking guidance and information system provides information about the availability of parking spaces within a controlled area. The systems may include vehicle detection sensors that can count the number of available spaces and display the information on various signs. There may be indicator lights that can lead drivers to an exact available spot.
An amusing alliterative slang term for finding an ideal parking spot directly in front of one's destination is Doris Day parking named for the American singer and actor who, in numerous romantic comedy films was shown to immediately drive into the perfect spot time after time.
Statistically, the optimal strategy is to drive past the first empty spot and park in the next available spot.
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