Driving an extreme bargain

Three years after the city's first P+R (park and ride) programs began, half of the six chosen parking stations are almost full every day but the other three are almost always empty.

P+R first appeared in satellite cities far from downtown areas in the US. Suburban commuters drive to public transport hubs just outside the downtown areas, park their cars in P+R parking stations and take the metro or buses to work.

Connecting private and public transport, P+R should be an effective way of relieving traffic congestion and the pressure on parking spaces downtown. Shanghai's six P+R parking stations provide nearly 2,300 parking spaces. The first two stations opened in July, 2009 and the other four opened in April, 2010.

As the city's economy booms, the number of private cars in Shanghai keeps soaring. At the end of 2010, there were more than 1 million private cars in Shanghai. Although the minimum price for a Shanghai car number plate hit 65,700 yuan ($10,413) earlier this month, more than 19,000 people still took part in the auction.

The increasing number of private cars has created a series of problems. Apart from traffic congestion and air pollution, the problems of finding adequate and suitable parking are growing. According to the Jiefang Daily, Shanghai's downtown area needs another 367,000 parking spaces.

The P+R projects were to help solve some of the city's parking woes. But the current programs have seen parking stations either crammed and overused or almost empty. The transport authority is evaluating the six P+R parking stations and will adjust operations to make them more efficient.

A good deal

The P+R parking stations charge car owners 10 yuan per day for parking (5:30 am - 11:30 pm) except the station at Songjiang University Town Station on metro Line 9 which charges 5 yuan. Commuters use their transport cards to pay for the parking and the subsequent metro trips. People who park their cars but don't use the metro pay 5 yuan per hour up to a maximum 40 yuan for 24 hours.

The six-story parking station at the Songhong Road Station on metro Line 2 is the busiest of the city's six P+R venues, offering 292 parking spaces. The manager, Gao Zhiyong, told the Global Times that the parking spaces are all taken before 8:10 am on weekdays. Most of the drivers live within five kilometers of the station. Even at weekends there are 100 cars parked there.

"The key to our success is that we have a wonderful location," Gao said. The parking lot is a two-minute walk from Songhong Road Station on metro Line 2, which links Hongqiao International Airport and Pudong International Airport, by way of Zhongshan Park, Jing'an Temple, Nanjing Road West and Lujiazui, where there are many major office buildings. Office workers who live nearby make up over 90 percent of their customers, according to Gao.

Some travelers going to Hongqiao International Airport or Hongqiao Railway Station also park their cars there and take the metro. "But whether it is economical depends on how long you park your car," Gao told the Global Times. The parking station at Hongqiao International Airport charges 10 yuan per hour for the first two hours and 5 yuan per hour for each ensuing hour up to a maximum of 50 yuan for 24 hours.

"At the beginning people thought it would just cost 10 yuan for a whole day of parking here. But in fact, the P+R parking lot charges five yuan per hour after 11:30 pm and drivers pay 45 yuan for a whole day's parking. That's similar to the charges at the airport. But if people are just going for a short visit to another city nearby and coming back the same day, it's more cost-effective to park here," Gao said.

According to Gao, only a third of the parking spaces were being taken when the parking station first opened in July 2009. But after publicity and promotions on television and in newspapers, customers began to come in droves. The parking lot was packed only a week after its opening and was turning away another 40 or 50 cars every day.

The quality of service there also contributes to the success of the parking station. "The parking station is always clean and any glitches are corrected as soon as they are discovered. I try to keep improving the running of the station and I often remind the staff to be polite always to our customers," Gao said.

Although the parking station is currently successful, Gao is working on further improvements. At present cars use the same access gate to enter and exit the station and at peak times there can be congestion there. By the end of this year another entrance will have been completed to ease this problem.

The success of the parking station, however, has brought its own problems. There are now not enough parking spaces to meet the demand. And because it is adjacent to Hongqiao International Airport the parking building itself cannot have extra floors built on to it. Because of the cost of land it also cannot expand laterally.

Gao told the Global Times that although the government offers a subsidy and the parking spaces are filled every day, the company which runs this P+R parking station loses money because of the low fees.

A popular place

The parking station at the Aerospace Museum Station on metro Line 8 is also busy. Around 460 of the 496 parking spaces there are regularly taken on weekdays. According to an employee surnamed Wang, 300 cars arrive to park there between 7 am and 9 am daily. Ninety-nine percent of these are P+R customers.

This parking station was originally opened for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai and was packed every day then. After Expo the station suffered a quiet six months with few cars parking there until the station authorities launched a promotional campaign.

Wang Xiaoqing is the head of the transport section of Pujiang town, Minhang district. He told the Global Times that they encouraged potential customers to try the P+R experience by offering free parking tickets and distributing shopping bags printed with a map featuring the parking station. After a two-month campaign, the number of cars parking there increased considerably.

"Our campaign was effective, but the location of the parking station itself is a major factor," Wang said. This parking lot is in a public transport hub which attracts crowds every day.

As the demand for parking spaces increases Wang is now looking at installing mechanical stacking equipment which would increase the present capacity by 25 percent.

A different story

Unlike the parking station at Songhong Road Station which was built as part of the P+R project, the 207-space parking station at the Jinjiang Amusement Park is part of the Hong Mei Business Building.

Managed by the Shanghai Shentong Metro Co, this parking station originally offered more than 100 spaces for the Shentong employees and another 100 to the tenants of the office block. The parking station only just met the demand for spaces from the two groups.

But in July 2009, this parking station which was built in the 1990s, had to set aside 70 spaces for the government's P+R program.

According to a staff member at the station, surnamed Mao, at present the P+R customers come earlier than the others and the 70 spaces are filled before 8:30 am on weekdays. Most of the P+R customers are office workers who live nearby and work in areas along the metro Line 1.

Many of the former customers who work in the Hong Mei Business Building, complain that they now have nowhere to park their cars because of the P+R program.

To ease the demand, the Xuhui district government asked the neighboring Jinjiang Amusement Park to open its parking lot to the public. But this has had limited success. Mao said although the amusement park charges only 10 yuan for 12 hours, drivers face a long walk back to the metro station.

"Some even park their cars outside the parking station and give the car keys to the staff there asking them to move their cars if they are in the way," Mao said. He added that the parking station was still losing money despite the governmental subsidy.

A desolate scene

The P+R parking station at Dachang Station on metro Line 7 is the largest of the P+R stations. But you don't have to get up early to find a park here. On weekdays you will find about 20 cars looking lost among the 720 parking spaces available.

"The big reason why there is little demand for car parking spaces is that the areas around here are not densely populated. This parking station was mostly empty even during the World Expo," an employee surnamed Jiao told the Global Times.

Although the P+R parking lot at the Songjiang University Town Station charges only 5 yuan per day, its situation is gloomy. But this has little to do with the parking it offers. "Our P+R parking lot is besieged on all four sides," Yuan Maodi, who manages the parking station, told the Global Times.

Yuan said an elevated metro track stands to the east of the parking station and more than 80 cars park underneath this. These car owners prefer to leave their cars exposed to the weather rather than pay parking fees. There's a private parking station at the north which accommodates about 70 cars. It is more convenient to park there because drivers don't need to drive underground and it charges the same as the P+R parking station. And there are free parking spaces in front of the hotel on the south and in the underground shopping mall in the west.

There are only 40 cars parking in this P+R venue on weekdays. The station rents out more than 100 parking spaces to a neighboring car shop to make up for some of its losses.

The city's transport authority said that the plans for P+R parking lots were drawn up in 2006. Shi Yong, an officer with the Shanghai Municipal Transport and Port Authority, said that the early plans did not match the current demand because of the rapid expansion of metro lines and the increase in the number of private cars.

According to the authorities, Shanghai will construct 37 P+R parking lots in the future with two to three to be opened by the end of this year. There are also plans to make the existing six stations more efficient, but the details have not been made public yet.

Yang Xiaoguang, a professor of traffic engineering at Tongji University, told the Global Times that the core of the P+R system was commuters so the authority should consider carefully what commuters actually needed.