Long-term effects of China’s three-year dynamic Zero-COVID policy on shared parking usage, resilience, and development: Empirical evidence from Guangzhou, China

Abstract

China maintained the world’s strictest and most enduring COVID-19 containment policy, the dynamic Zero-COVID policy, which enforced a zero-tolerance to infections from 2020 to 2022. Although studies have shown significant effects of pandemic policies on shared mobility services, the influence of China’s distinctive policy on shared parking, an emerging shared mobility mode, remains poorly understood. Most existing research has focused only on the short-term impacts of the initial 2020 outbreak, neglecting long-term effects for the whole period of dynamic Zero-COVID policy.

This study uses empirical data from AirParking, China’s largest shared parking platform, covering November 2018 to October 2022, to examine the long-term impacts of the dynamic Zero-COVID policy on shared parking. Event study results reveal that each COVID-19 outbreak led to a sharp decline in shared parking usage yet an increase in average parking duration. Clustering via the Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM) algorithm further indicated a shift in trip purposes toward office-related long-term parking and a reduction in shared parking use within residential areas. In-depth interviews with Airparking senior managers and urban planners revealed that user’s loyalty and internal platform operations were unaffected, but the policy considerably disrupted on-site management of shared parking lots.

These findings enhance understanding of the resilience of shared parking under stringent public health control measures and provide practical insights for policy design and operational strategies in future health emergencies affecting shared and overall mobility.