Overspill parking

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Overspill parking behaviour can occur where parking spaces are a scarce commodity, and owners of residential land uses or commercial premises, and municipal authorities, have not made suitable arrangements to accommodate or demand manage vehicular parking so that it takes place in a planned and laid-out manner.

Any excess of parking demand over supply, either at trip origins (residential areas) or trip destinations (events, shopping areas etc.) can sometimes result in ad hoc overspill parking behaviour taking place, whereby drivers may seek the most convenient alternative parking location (generally the shortest walking distance), and vehicles accumulate informally along sections of road carriageway designed for general traffic flow, or on unallocated public or private land, or footpaths.

In some cases, this leads to the public authority introducing further parking regulations. For example, residential zoned parking schemes may be introduced to reallocate road space from benefiting general traffic and amenity, to the benefit of those residents who have not yet made their own provision for overnight parking of vehicles. In other cases, the municipal authority may introduce a more varied area parking scheme comprising parking restrictions, permit bays, metered bays, regulations or bollards to discourage pavement parking or overspill parking onto nearby land, sometimes with balanced allocations of road space for non-car modes.