Managing parking reservations to mitigate congestion in office-oriented garages

Abstract

To alleviate the congestion caused by long parking lines in office-oriented garages, we explore the parking reservation management strategy and focus on the optimization of arrival patterns. A k-means algorithm based on dynamic time warping (DTW) is initially applied to extract the representative arrival patterns of parking vehicles. Based on these patterns, a bi-objective arrival optimization model is then developed to decrease traffic delay time and reduce individual discomfort due to arrival time shifts. The Pareto solution set is obtained, suggesting a potentially optimal balance between traffic delay and individual discomfort. The further analysis indicates that, strategically redistributing a small percentage of vehicle arrivals can mitigate congestion under certain conditions. For small-, medium-, and large-sized garages, shifting 9.01%, 6.90% and 11.07%, respectively, of the arrival demand to either of the adjacent time windows can reduce traffic delay time by 32.74%, 49.01% and 63.27%, respectively.