Pitching disabled parking right
Published: 17 June, 2010
Disabled spaces are a challenge for car park operators everywhere, and new research suggests legislation is forcing them to provide too many spaces
Last year the British Parking Association, in partnership with the Department for Transport, Mobilise and the BCSC, commissioned WSP Development and Transportation to undertake a research survey of parking facilities for disabled people in off-street public car parks within the UK.
According to its terms of reference the study set out to: “Better understand the provision, allocation, use, abuse and enforcement of designated disabled parking bays in off-street public parking facilities.” And its findings will be fed into a review of the statutory guidance on the provision of designated disabled parking spaces in retail and town centre locations.
The current guidance on disabled parking requirements is based on a parking provision for disabled people of 6 per cent of the overall number of parking bays regardless of how small or large the car park is. Operators know that this system can antagonise the general public and lead to the abuse of disabled spaces, so the primary objective of the research was to obtain data to better understand disabled parking demand and usage across different days of the week and time periods.
Over 2,000 BPA and BCSC contacts were invited to participate in the survey to firstly gather information on the general characteristics of each car park surveyed. Participants were then required to record the number of vehicles occupying designated disabled bays during several time periods. In the end 115 different car parks across the UK took part with 70 per cent serving high streets, 25 per cent shopping centres, 3 per cent retail parks and 2 per cent supermarkets.
The car parks surveyed vary significantly in size, from just 12 bays to 3,014. Overall 40 per cent had less than 200 spaces; 24 per cent had between 200 and 500, 27 per cent between 500 and 1,000 spaces, and the remainder exceeded 1,000 spaces.
Among the key findings of the study was the fact that only 21 car parks, or 18 per cent of the sample, achieved or exceeded the guideline provision of 6 per cent or higher. And they tended to be smaller car parks with less then 200 bays.
In terms of the location of disabled bays, they tend to be grouped together in one part of the car park or on key lower levels rather than spread evenly around a car park.
And as for the actual usage by disabled drivers, it was found that the larger the car park the lower the percentage utilisation of designated disabled parking bays. Only two car parks of more than 200 spaces experienced disabled parking utilisation of 6 per cent or more. Half of the car parks over 200 spaces surveyed had a peak disabled utilisation of less than 3 per cent, while it was 3-5 per cent in another third.
The survey also found that the highest demand is during the lunchtime period when on average 2.7 per cent of all parking bays were occupied by disabled users, falling to 2.3 per cent in the afternoon, 1.9 per cent in the morning and 0.8 per cent in the evening.
The report concluded that a ‘one size fits all’ approach such as the current 6 per cent guidance does not account for the breadth of external and local factors which affect the demand for off-street disabled parking in a particular town or car park.
And it recommended that disabled parking provision should be considered as part of a wider package alongside sound management and enforcement procedures.
