How to improve parking provisions for Bhubaneshwar city?

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Institute of Town Planners, India 289
71st NTCP Conference, Bhubaneswar
HOW TO IMPROVE PARKING PROVISIONS FOR BHUBANESWAR CITY?
Manaswinee Kar
Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand
Shubhajit Sadhukhan
Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture & Planning,
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand
Manoranjan Parida
Director, CSIR - Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi
1. INTRODUCTION
Large scale industrialisation and technological advancements over a long period of time has resulted
in rapid urbanisation in India. This is evident from the increase in urban population from 27.82
percent as per 2001 census year to 31.14 percent in 2011 census year (Ministry of Housing and
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has led to the emergence of new towns (statutory and census) over the 2001-2011 decade which
has consequently raced up the level of urbanisation in the country. Though this urban growth
has contributed towards the country’s economy however, it has put tremendous pressure on the
infrastructure facilities in major cities and towns required to cater to the needs of the urban
population. Also, it is worth mentioning that the urban growth in the country is skewed and uneven
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in industrial and service sectors. The levels of urbanisation are wide-ranging among the states.
Odisha is one of the bottom-line Indian states with respect to urbanisation. According to the Census
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state in India. Being the capital city of Odisha and the centre of employment opportunities, urban
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different parts of the state to Bhubaneswar to earn a livelihood, there has been a noticeable increase
in the mobility requirements of people. Due to inadequate public transportation facilities, it has
been observed that commuters in urban Bhubaneswar are mostly dependent on private vehicles
for meeting their daily travel needs. As per the Vahan 4.0 Database, Ministry of Road Transport &
Highways, Government of India (https://vahan.parivahan.gov.in/vahan4dashboard/), Bhubaneswar
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needs to be mentioned that there is a steep rise in the number of registered vehicles after the
COVID-19 pandemic. This increased number of vehicles entails huge spaces for parking. It may be
mentioned that the city provides options for on/off-street parking facilities, however, in a discrete
manner. The increased parking burden poses a huge challenge to the development of the city. Fig.
1 includes a few pictures which clearly depict the parking issues prevalent in Bhubaneswar city.
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Mission started by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India in 2015 to build
sustainable and liveable cities having essential infrastructural facilities and equipped with smarter
solutions to address the problems. Of the major developments proposed for the city, the provision
of multi-level car parking in terms of infrastructural development and technological interventions
in parking was suggested. While two multi-level car parking facilities equipped with smart parking
management systems have been developed and are operational at Unit-2, Raj Mahal Square and
Shaheed Nagar, there is still a need for more parking provisions in the city. Therefore, the present

Institute of Town Planners, India 290
71st NTCP Conference, Bhubaneswar
manuscript primarily aims to review the literature in terms of studying the existing parking policy
documents and reports at the national level and learning about good parking practices prevalent in
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in adopting best practices for implementing parking facilities to manage the increased parking
demand in Bhubaneswar.
2. INSIGHTS FROM NATIONAL URBAN TRANSPORT POLICY
The National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) is a policy document designed at the national level in
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issues in urban areas and focus on the mobility of people instead of vehicles. The policy document is
primarily aimed at providing ‘safe, affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable and sustainable access’
to facilities and services to the increasing number of inhabitants in the cities. The report adopts a
comprehensive approach which includes ‘Urban Transport Planning, Infrastructure Design, Public
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Building’ to achieve the targeted objectives. Parking is one of the important infrastructure facilities
which is required to meet the needs of private vehicle users to ensure ‘Mobility for All’. However,
it needs to be mentioned that it is not feasible to allocate bigger portions of valuable urban land in
terms of parking spaces to accommodate the increasing number of private vehicles. Moreover, NUTP
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Fig. 1 Parking Issues in Bhubaneswar

Institute of Town Planners, India 291
71st NTCP Conference, Bhubaneswar
level type parking facilities with numerous commercial complexes at the city centres. Further, the
policy document recommends installing the electronic metering system in the parking facilities to
gain better insights on the parking fees and consequently, make feasible investments. Alternatively,
the policy document suggests various policy recommendations such as imposing high parking fees,
preference for public transit and non-motorised transport modes in terms of parking, park-and-ride
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and promote the use of sustainable modes of transport to reach city centres. Apart from all the
aforementioned objectives, the revised NUTP document (Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD),
2014) proposes to view parking from the perspective of a demand management tool by suggesting
neighborhood parking instead of allocating parking spaces for each building. The Government of
India supports the ‘Park-and-Ride’ strategy as one of the potential options to curtail the usage
of private vehicles and consequently the demand for parking. The NUTP 2014 document also
proposes the provision of parking facilities along the transit corridor to encourage and facilitate
park-and-ride in congested metropolitan cities. Further, providing such park-and-ride facilities near
stations/stops can serve as a vital last-mile connectivity feature of public transport. Besides, the
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intelligent transport system for parking information and management system.
3. INSIGHTS FROM MAJOR CITY-SPECIFIC PARKING POLICIES
Delhi suffers from severe parking problems due to a tremendous increase in parking demand by the
rising number of private vehicles while there is an acute shortage of land. In the year 2017, the
Environmental Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) proposed a comprehensive parking policy with due
consideration of inputs from different agencies, namely the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC),
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to resolve the ever-increasing parking issues in Delhi (Transport Department, 2005). The policy
document recommended interventions in areas related to parking charge rationalisation, parking
in residential and commercial areas, on-street parking management, use of advanced technology
for parking management and enforcement-related issues. While some of the recommendations
were short-term, a few were medium or long-term recommendations. The prominent suggestions
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of “No Parking Roads”, exemplary punishment for illegal parking, implementation of park-and-ride
facilities, incentivisation of multilevel parking vis-a-vis surface parking, emphasis on the smart
card-based automated parking management system.
Bengaluru is yet another major city in the country which has witnessed an unparalleled upsurge
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Consequently, the city is faced with serious parking problems. Parking is primarily on-street and
unregulated in Bengaluru leading to issues like safety, and reduced carriageway capacity available
for other users. To resolve the parking issues, the Directorate of Urban Land Transport initially
drafted the parking policy which was implemented by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike in March
2012. The policy was typically aimed to have a gradual decrease in the parking demand. Moreover,
the policy encouraged to have an organised and automated metered parking facility for vehicles.
While the imposition of parking fees was suggested to encourage a modal shift to public transport,
the policy also recommended charging different fees for off-street and on-street parking so as to
discourage on-street parking for a larger time period. The policy document favoured building multi-
level car parks, and automated parking lots for optimising parking space utilisation and introducing

Institute of Town Planners, India 292
71st NTCP Conference, Bhubaneswar
park-and-ride facilities. Further, the above policy document was reviewed and revised based on the
changed parking demand for smoother parking management in Bengaluru city. The revised policy
document “Parking Policy 2.0: For Bengaluru” was published in December 2020 by the Directorate
of Urban Land Transport, Urban Development Department, Government of Karnataka (Directorate
of Urban Land Transport, 2020). The document primarily aimed to strengthen the existing parking
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into systematic and organised parking through the management of on-street parking, freeing up
residential streets to make them walk-friendly, and inclusive planning of parking supply. The second
objective encouraged to charge the users for parking vehicles instead of allowing for free parking.
The third objective focussed on prioritising market-driven parking supply and management instead
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regulations.
Serious parking problems exist in the city of Lucknow due to an acute shortage in the availability
of off-street parking facilities. As a result, the parking is predominantly on-street and unorganised
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in Lucknow. The revised city development plan document has proposed to have multi-level parking
complexes in the city centres and several commercial locations after a suitable discussion with the
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worsened the parking conditions in the city. Hence, a public parking policy document was designed
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integrate suitably with other transport modes and ensure effective enforcement of parking rules
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the key objectives of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan of Pune, 2008 with a preference to the
movement of people over vehicles, focus on last mile connectivity through parking facilities for
bicycles and intermediate transport modes at interchange locations, management of travel demand
by encouraging a shift from private vehicles towards more sustainable options, rationalisation of on-
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suggested restricted parking with higher charges for the central business district area and mobility
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on the demand of parking, rentals and vehicle’s Equivalent Car Space (ECS). Further, the document
proposed several ideas to implement and enforce the public parking policy effectively. Pune city
was divided by the Pune Municipal Corporation into parking districts which included both off-street
and on-street parking facilities (streets having both paid parking and no parking considered) being
managed by a single operator. In terms of on-street parking management, the spaces were proposed
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was also used for designing off-street parking facilities with suitable access road, and distinct entry
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management system. Such a system could be used to evaluate the parking demand, restrict parking
violations through use of parking meters or other smart technology, enable easier payments, and
achieve differential parking rates. Further, a parking application software could be developed to
identify available parking spaces in an area thereby decreasing the parking search time.

Institute of Town Planners, India 293
71st NTCP Conference, Bhubaneswar
4. PARKING PRACTICES AT INTERNATIONAL SPHERE
Similar to India, cities worldwide also face a huge demand for parking spaces especially at the city
centre. To decrease this parking burden, cities have adopted ‘Park-and-Ride’ which is a suitable
travel demand management strategy to curtail the use of private vehicles. The strategy allows users
to start at the trip origins using their own private vehicles, stop at intermediate park-and-ride lots
located near transit stations to park their vehicles and then take the transit to their destinations
(Kar et al., 2023; Karamychev and Van Reeven, 2011). In other words, the park-and-ride approach
encourages commuters to use their private vehicles as access modes to transit facilities. It is indeed
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congestion but also the congestion in the city centre (Karamychev and Van Reeven, 2011). It has
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reduced vehicular emissions (Duncan and Cook, 2014). There are several instances in literature
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park-and-ride facilities (Kar et al., 2023).
5. CONCLUSIONS
The present study reviews the existing parking policy documents and reports at the city and national
level and the best practices prevalent in the international sphere to gain insights to manage the
increased parking demand through the implementation of parking facilities in Bhubaneswar. The
review develops an understanding of parking as a travel demand management tool. Moreover,
the study draws knowledge from the existing policy documents on how to implement and enable
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prevalent in the international sphere in terms of park-and-ride facilities which can be a potential
travel demand management strategy in reducing the usage of private vehicles for commuting and
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in adopting best practices for implementing parking facilities to manage the increased parking
demand in the smart city of Bhubaneswar.
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SENES Consultants India Pvt. Ltd., 2015. Revised City Development Plan for Lucknow City-2040. Lucknow.
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