Report

Update on environmental effects of differentiated parking tariffs

At the request of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment CE Delft has investigated the environmental effects of differentiated parking tariffs. The study is an update of an earlier study carried out by CE Delft in 2006 on the environmental effects of such a measure. Such an update was required to gain more insight into the usefulness and necessity of pilot legislation enabling a limited number of local authorities to experiment with differentiated parking tariffs. Under current legislation, authorities are not permitted to implement this kind of scheme.

The scenario for differentiated parking tariffs examined in this study leads to a reduction in the PM10 and NOx emissions of the parking vehicles of 3-7% and 2-6%, respectively, leading to a reduction in town-centre PM10 and NOx emissions of 1-2% and 0.5-1%. Local authorities can boost the effectiveness of differentiated parking tariffs by providing efficient public transport infrastructure, cycling provisions and ‘transferiums’, or by combining the measure with other (local) measures such as local road tolls or inner-city ‘green zones’. Another option to increase the effectiveness is to extend the area where paid parking is in force, thus to capture more vehicles under the scheme.