Park 2 Go is a mobile application concept for park-and-ride commuters and travelers to the greater London area. The app demonstrates how increased intermodal or mixed-mode transportation can improve user choice, while reducing traffic from drivers outside London’s congestion zone.
This mobile app gives users timely information to make choices when traveling to central London. The user is able to compare the total cost and duration for each mode of travel and decide which trip is best for them.
Improving user information and choice while reducing congestion.
The app allows users to filter the results based upon what is important to them, namely cost and time. The total cost and inconvenience of owning a car is typically experienced in the long term, whereas the pains of using public transportation are experienced up front. For this reason, the app shows a conservative estimate of fuel (current average is £1.29 per liter in UK), parking, and congestion zone costs. A future goal of this project is to include other factors, including reliability and convenience.
The app allows users to filter the results based upon what is important to them, namely cost and time. The total cost and inconvenience of owning a car is typically experienced in the long term, whereas the pains of using public transportation are experienced up front. For this reason, the app shows a conservative estimate of fuel (current average is £1.29 per liter in UK), parking, and congestion zone costs. A future goal of this project is to include other factors, including reliability and convenience.
The intermodal options take advantage of affordable parking near rail and bus stations outside London’s congestion zone. In many cases, the overall trip time and cost are reduced by using the park-and-ride route. The app extends Google’s directions service to include routes that make use of both private car and public transportation.
Intermodal transportation combines two or more modes of transportation in the same journey. Passenger travel is usually intermodal, as drivers must walk at the beginning and end of the journey. Travel that utilizes both cars and public transportation is not as common. Still many cities, including London, have designed systems for Park-and-Ride or “Kiss-and-Ride” commuting. The idea is to have automotive transportation feed the city’s public transportation infrastructure.
Read about the project on Medium:
https://medium.com/@stevepepple/park-and-ride-mobile-app-fc57539ee3c1
A longer term goal for this project would be to improve the convenience of parking and connecting with public transportation. A transit planning app could consider delays in both traffic and public transit system to provide the user with better information. A mobile application could also automate the reservation of and payment for parking. For this reason, the car parks database prefers parking providers that accept mobile payment.
