Colombo needs better, managed parking

Colombo is in need of better, managed parking as the city continues to grapple with congestion on the streets.

According to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, by 2017 the vehicle population in Sri Lanka was 7,247,122 compared to 6,795,469 vehicles in 2016.

Over 500,000 vehicles reportedly enter Colombo daily and there is a serious shortage for most of these vehicles to find parking in the city.

The failure by the authorities to meet the demand for more parking spaces through a proper city plan has contributed to traffic jams in most parts of Colombo.

At present there are two types of parking: On-street parking and off-street parking. On-street parking involves using the lanes designated for parking along the main roads in Colombo. Off- street parking involves using car parks, either in private property or public car parks. One immediate solution to partly resolve the congestion in the city is to manage existing parking spaces, particularly on-street parking.

Head of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Professor J.M.S.J (Saman) Bandara said that existing parking spaces are not being managed properly.

He noted that in some places on-street parking is occupied for longer hours by drivers and that prevents people looking for a very short time to park, being unable to do so.

Prof. Bandara said that there needs to be different rates and parking systems based on the location as opposed to one uniform system all over.

For example, he feels parking near schools should be for short durations so parents can drop their children and go while there needs to be on-street parking slots for longer durations at other locations.

He said that a survey carried out by the Moratuwa University identified the ‘ hot spots’ for parking and the analysis was handed over to the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC).

The analysis identifies locations where people park the most and on average it has been found that people park for approximately one hour and 10 minutes.

He said there also needs to be proper information disseminated to the public using available technology on smart phones for drivers to identify where parking is available.

“Otherwise it adds up to the traffic when people drive around slowly looking for parking,” he noted.

Need for proper awareness

Dr. Dimantha De Silva of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa said that there also needs to be proper awareness on the need for better managed parking and paid parking.

“People look at parking as a cost. They perceive that as a separate cost than the out of pocket cost they have to pay for their fuel consumption or ticket price. They see this as a big onus. You know, paying Rs. 50 to go 2 km by car against paying Rs. 50 for parking, it is two different perceptions. That’s why always when you don’t have this in the system, it is difficult to enforce it initially,” he said.

Looking at how systems work in evolved countries the ‘pay to park’ concept ensures the authorities can restrict unwanted people coming into the city during peak hours.

“You can have a parking cost mechanism in the city. And this can be separate. You can have a short, long term or medium term parking pass. Your pricing mechanism will dictate how you can control. For example if you want certain people to park it only for a very short time, then like in other parts of the world, you only provide 30 minutes of parking. If you park beyond 30 minutes, you are charged. For example, if you come to the bank or the post office which doesn’t take more than 30 minutes, you can identify and say this location as only 30 minutes. So we restrict people coming and parking for five hours and taking that spot. So we use it for different people. We use that space productively. You know there are mechanisms to do that. There are systems to do that. So it’s a matter of how we enforce this,” he said.

Switch to off-street parking

Dr. De Silva is also of the opinion that offstreet parking is not being made use of effectively.

“Ideally, on-street parking should be taken off little by little. Because what happens is if there are two or three lanes on a road and if there is a parking lane on the left-side, the vehicle movement capacity is reduced on the left-most lane because of these few vehicles coming into the parking bay and coming out. Those are the issues with on-street parking. So someone can say, let’s take the on-street parking out. But practically it’s not going to work if you don’t have off-street parking. There are UDA lands which won’t be used for another 3-4 years. On the short term we need to use these as parking lots. We have been telling authorities to identify lands like this. It will take some time to come to a complete solution – that will be when we can move to off-street parking. But the cost-effectiveness we can’t do with this Rs. 30 charge. When we increase the price, the private sector can come in and provide more supply. The private sector cannot come in because they can’t make money to compensate for their investment,” he said.

Dr. De Silva said that the proposal for paid parking was included in the Megapolis masterplan and the CMC was encouraged to go with the project.

Smart parking using parking meters has been introduced by the CMC in partnership with the private sector.

Although it took a long time to complete, they commenced working on it but there are some problematic areas which arose that should have been looked into before it was launched.

“There are minimum requirements before starting a project which needs to be looked into. On the payment front, I feel the cash option should be there, also a credit card option and a Mobile Application,” he said.

Dr. De Silva noted that the CMC system has the ability of a mobile application, but lack of public awareness resulted in the system not being made proper use of.

The other issue is the distance between the parking meters. Dr. De Silva says there needs to be a minimum distance at which the machines are available. “You know the typical distance people would walk is 200m. That is why we have the bus halts at 400 m intervals. So anyone who goes in the middle can walk either side to get the ticket. So basi-

cally you can have a ticketing machine every 400 meters.

So that must be the criteria to the company that manages parking – in that you have this flexibility; payment methods and token ticketing machines at this distance.

In the end, educating the public on the need for better parking is key. Once the public fall into the system everything else will fall in place.

“From the people’s point of view, we must educate them on why we are doing this. You know, there is a shortage of supply to provide everybody the service, so we want more people to use this. So by paying a parking fee, what we are doing is limiting the number of unwanted parking. By doing this, we are giving more opportunities for people to find a parking spot. That is what we are basically doing. It’s not just making money, it’s for controlling the congestion. If someone wants to park and doesn’t find it they will just keep going around. That’s going to contribute more to the congestion. And we are losing the capacity of the road. Eventually we need to make parking profitable for the city. We need to go to that level to sustain an efficient road management system.”