Social Influence in the Context of Parking Choice: A Stated Preference Experiment

For many years, researchers, along with municipalities, have been trying to decrease growing
congestions in the cities. Yet, despite employing sometimes drastic and inconvenient measures,
drivers still choose to park in the centers of the cities. It has been brought to attention, that
existing researches mainly focus on parking attributes and overlook other factors which may
change the driver’s behavior, such as the effect of social interactions. This study tried to find to
what extent do parking attributes and social influence affect driver’s choice of a parking spot. The
conducted stated preference experiment, spread by the means of an online survey, within a
month’s time gathered the opinions of 603 respondents. The respondents were asked to evaluate
eight attributes, out of which 4 regarded the parking attributes, and 4 social influence. The
collected data was analyzed by the means of binary logit and latent class model. The results show,
that parking attributes such as parking tariff or the walking distance play the most important role
when choosing a parking spot, however, social influence also can be of importance. Individuals
tend to be more responsive if the influence comes from people with whom they have closer ties.
Otherwise, they tend to show indifference. This study is one of few which focuses on getting more
insight into social influence in the context of parking. The gathered knowledge adds to the body
of previous researches carried out in the recent years. Information gathered while creating this
thesis can be later useful to the governmental bodies to improve the existing parking policies.