energies Article The Use of a Park and Ride System—A Case Study Based on the City of Cracow (Poland) El˙zbietaMacioszek * and Agata Kurek Transport Systems and Traffic Engineering Department, Faculty of Transport and Aviation Engineering, Silesian University of Technology, Krasi´nskiego8 Street, 40-019 Katowice, Poland; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +48-32-603-41-50 Received: 15 May 2020; Accepted: 3 July 2020; Published: 5 July 2020 Abstract: The park and ride (P&R) parking type is usually located near peripheral public transport stops. These parking places are dedicated to people who, after leaving their vehicle in the parking, continue their journey to the city center using some form of public transport such as bus, metro, rail or tram systems. This article aims to examine the features associated with P&R parking locations in use in Cracow (Poland). The analysis included the number of entries and exits to and from parking during particular periods of the day, week and year, parking time of vehicles, and parking space use. A parking peak hour factor was also calculated, which expresses the crowding degree of vehicle entries/exits in/out parking during a particular period. In addition, the paper presents an analysis of factors determining users to P&R parking use. In the modeling process, logit models were used, which, as stated after analyzing the literature on the subject, were already used in various countries around the world to describe the behavior of P&R parking users. However, so far, such research relating to Polish conditions has been not published in the available literature. The obtained results allowed to state that the most important factors determining the likelihood of using P&R parking in Cracow are age, number of years having a driving license, monthly income (gross), and an average number of trips made during a day. Other variables, which not included in the study, can influence the P&R parking use. However, the presented results are the basis for conducting furtherer, more in-depth analyses based on a larger number of independent variables that may determine the P&R parking use. Keywords: parking; park & ride; the use of park & ride systems; parking peak hour factor; logistic regression model; road traffic engineering; road transport 1. Introduction High traffic volumes in cities often lead to road congestion. Dense buildings and other terrain restrictions often not allow further development of the street network [1,2]. These conditions lead to the search and implementation of solutions aimed at limiting the number of passenger cars entering the city center. In many cities around the world, there is a tendency to build Park and Ride (P&R) parking locations on the outskirts. They are designed to enable users to combine travel using their personal means of transport with means of public transport, thus contributing to reducing the number of passenger cars entering the city center (Figure1). P&R parking contributes to improving transport accessibility to city centers. In addition, the ecological awareness of societies is constantly growing that strive to live in an unpolluted environment, free from communication noise. Energies 2020, 13, 3473; doi:10.3390/en13133473 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies Energies 2020, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 26 theEnergies vehicle2020, 13in, 3473P&R parking, which is often free with a ticket for public transport, or the fee2 of is 26 relatively small. Figure 1. The idea of travels made using parking type P&R and various means of transport. Source: FigureThe authors, 1. The based idea of on travels [1,3]. made using parking type P&R and various means of transport. Source: The authors, based on [1,3]. P&R parking also provides benefits to the drivers of cars, because in their travel they do not incur any time loss in road congestion or looking for a parking space. 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