data collection

1

Parking Issues at Beihang University

Yiling Zhang

11/6/2017

Dr.Pezzoli

Abstract

Traffic safety, management, and parking issues are major concerns of large universities. The

number of students, native and international students and faculty’s use of vehicles make it

difficult for university management to tackle the growing demand for parking lots. Therefore, the

present study will focus the Beihang University of China as a case study to pinpoint its parking

issues, the solution proposed by public and recommended solution based on both literature and

participants of the study. Data will gather through a subjective questionnaire and analyze through

descriptive statistics, discrete choice model and GIS.

2

Introduction

Universities can be considered as a small and growing town which binds the planners and

policymakers to provide community facilities to each member of a community. Transportation

facilities are basic needs of each member and it becomes more dynamic and complex due to the

contribution of different factors. These include growing numbers of vehicles, for example, staff

members, students, visitors and staff members who live near the campus area. Little attention has

been given to university traffic issues, policies of universities, and planning of parking lots.

This unique combination of transportation land, its use, and planning provides us an ample

opportunity to examine existing transportation policies and management process and propose

recommendations to improve the existing transportation system while analyzing its outcomes.

The matter of the fact is that land use refers the space which is used for transportation facilities

within the campus of universities. In simple words, land use of parking lots, pedestrians,

vehicular access roads and buildings consisting of administrative buildings, boarding and athlete

buildings (Kuo 2015).

The relationship between transportation land and campus is that if the campus provides a

convenient and easy transport, it increases the use of vehicle within campus area. Therefore,

people take off the use of the alternative i.e. local transportation system. In the case of use of

local transport system, and is left for auditoriums and additional buildings to accommodate other

facilities in the campus. In the case of universities, transportation system requires proper

planning, accurate estimation of demand and supply of transportation and provision of

alternatives (Tahani Y. Al Hanaei 2007).

3

Commonly little attention to given to campus parking issues and transportation management

system. It is important to give attention to campus area’s transportation planning because issues

or mess in campus area has potential to affect the nearby town. The purpose of this research

proposal is to identify the issues of parking and transportation fee and local transportation

facilities available at Beihang University, Beijing, China.

Beihang University established in 1952 and enjoy the status of the first university offering

aerospace technological education in the country. The university offers graduate, undergraduate

and doctoral programs in areas of aeronautics, astronautics, and informatics. Roughly 10,282

students are enrolled in postgraduate programs, 12,523 in graduate programs and total 3,359 staff

members. On the other hand, 49 fields offer doctoral programs, 144 programs for postgraduates

and bachelors’ program consist of total 48 fields. On the other hand, the university offers high-

quality laboratories and libraries which have the status of China's top laboratories and libraries

(BUAA.Edu.CN 2017).

The transportation system of the university is convenient and easy to access for local and

international students as well. Different subways, railroads, and bus lines link the university with

a different section of the city. Thus, for the present study, we aim to examine the parking

behaviors of drivers, the duration of their parking, balance between demand and supply of

parking vehicles, and their relationship with the parking management policies of the university.

Additionally, this study will propose alternative transportation techniques and strategies to

increase revenues (Boamahb 2016).

4

Framework of the Study

Traffic safety, management, and parking issues are major concerns of large universities. The

number of students, native and international students and faculty’s use of vehicles make it

difficult for university management to tackle the growing demand for parking lots. Although,

universities have a large area the increasing numbers of disciplines, research centers and

buildings for sports and alumni etc. make it impossible for university management to create new

parking space in the existing area. Further, the crowd of traffic also becomes an important issue.

This situation requires additional security as well managerial concerns (Boamahb 2016).

In the case of Beihang University, the transportation issues required more attention and care to

handle them because of its central location in the city and facilities of research and mutual

partnerships with government level institutions. A research study conducted at the Sharjah

University of America, to investigate the issues of parking and alternative structures for meeting

the parking needs of people. Further, this study examined the role of increased cost to meet the

requirement of people. For achieving these goals, a survey study is conducted to investigate

perceptions of people who use parking.

Results indicate that multi-level parking structure is not a good alternative. It has great impacts

on surroundings including a mess of traffic, noise, and waste. Further, results indicated that

university should plan and execute a comprehensive transportation plan which complies with the

demand and supply of traffic in the campus area (Tahani Y. Al Hanaei 2007). This study

recommends the importance of growing need for education and training programs to describe

give awareness to the public about different modes of transportation available at the university

5

campus. Moreover, the growing numbers of institutions and buildings required more place and a

strategic planning to tackle issues in the university.

There exist other factors a well which contributes to campus traffic. These include staff residence

and involvement of university in different projects with the private and public sector. The matter

of the fact is that campus transportation becomes a great issue for the present time and future as

well. an empirical study conducted at Beihang university indicate that growing numbers of

buildings and new blocks, lowered the capacity of parking place and results are a shortage of

parking space. For this purpose, researchers also gathered and analyzed drivers’ behaviors and

attitude to parking duration and they're in an on-going time (aijun 2007).

A study conducted by Barat, Cruz and Ferreira, (2011) discussed problems and solutions of the

traffic problems in campus areas. Results indicated low parking price and over crowdedness. On

the basis of these results, it an integrated parking management policies are suggested. These

policies will encounter a logical use of parking space, initiate charges to increase revenues, and

balances demand and supply of vehicles. It is also suggested that university management must

attract people towards alternative parking and traffic solutions. Public transportation as an

alternative approach may have positive impacts on traffic issues (Eduardo Barata 2011).

Related literature reveals that parking issue is the biggest problem in large-scale universities. The

important point to note that literature related to parking issues does not examine the mode of

transportation as an active variable. Thus, the study by Riggs, (2014) examined the mode of

transportation as an active variable which may have positive role to tackle transport related

issues. Therefore, this research study studied the impacts of travelers’ information system,

parking price reforms and incentives affect the people’s attitude towards a public transport and

6

non-motorized modes for both faculties, students and other clerical staff. Survey results indicated

that many social factors and incentive programs have positive influence to provoke people to use

public transportation facilities. Thus, the campus should also benchmark a desirable behavior

which people intend to follow (WilliamRiggs 2014).

In the same manner, further research in the area focuses the phenomenon of construction of new

parking lots. It was observed that construction of new parking lots is not cost effective as

compared to the expansion of existing parking lots. Therefore, in 2013, the university has

initiated to develop new parking lots but turned its focus towards outreach mode-shift to review

the driving patterns of affected drivers. During the study, researchers analyze a shift in commute

patterns of drivers.

This can be done because of a marketing campaign and but at the same time provided guidance

about the alternative routes. This also indicated that one to one interaction with people also

brought change in their commuting patterns. Results showed that people did not drive alone

when they knew their targeted outreach. Thus, the research showed that this kind of programs

proved effective and useful for urban cities universities campuses (Kuo 2015).

Literature reveals that increasing demand for parking is the major and increasing issue for the

urban universities campuses. There exist much cause of this problem. Here, the most important

point is to highlight the causes and attributes to park a vehicle in a certain place highly affected

by social factors like reasons of visits, arrival and departure time are major factors to influence

parking choices. For this purpose, a survey was conducted to assemble driver’s views who

parked their cars, on regular basis. Analysis through discrete choice technique and binary logic

model illustrated that along with these factors, parking fee, security and available parking

7

facilities were important factors which should be kept in mind to prepare a parking plan for

urban university campus (AMPANSIRIRAT 2011).

Review of the above research studies indicated that universities located at the center of an urban

area require a sophisticated, integrated and strategic planning. There are numbers of reasons

which imbalance the demand and supply of parking lots. Moreover, this continuous imbalance of

two forces allows university management to take steps for solving these issues. Further, many

strategies like alternative approaches, targeted outreach, and public awareness are recommended.

The matter of the fact is these studies examine parking problems according to policy

perspectives, review consumer’s thoughts but not include them while proposing a solution.

Thus, the main purpose of this study is to highlight the issues of parking and other traffic issues

on the university campus of Beihang University. This study will adopt a research approach

which incorporates consumers or drivers to point out the issues, they face in routine. Further,

they will also suggest some potential recommendations to improve the parking conditions of the

university. This new approach will give way to further developments on the campus. The matter

of the facts is drivers’ involvement in the identification of problems and recommendations for

improvements will provide a new and creative insight into the issues.

Research Question

Following will be the research questions of the current study;

1. What are common issues, drivers face while parking at Beihang University?

2. What are their proposed solutions to parking issues at Beihang University?

3. What will be the possible solutions to parking issues at Beihang University?

8

Methodology

Parking Structure of Beihang University

Beihang University occupied Xueyuan Road, the China’s heart of Silicon Valley. The campus

can be divided into four components; staff residency zone, teaching area, students’ dormitory

area and buildings for public activities. The matter of the fact is that as compared to teaching

area, the residency area and public activity area have to face the main responsibility of traffic.

The public area covers banks, shops, museum, playground, post offices, and hospitals. Thus, 442

parking lots are available in public areas and 662 in residents’ area. These parking lots provide

parking facilities to outsiders as well. Thus, the case study mainly focuses the public area

parking lots, their issues as explained by drivers, prospective solutions, and recommendations for

future.

Design of Study

The research design will be the case study. This design allows us to examine the present

phenomenon with all targeted aspects. Thus, the primary purpose of this study is to highlight the

parking issues at Beihang University, China. Therefore, the parking lots located in public area of

the campus will represent as a case in this study. Therefore descriptive survey research method

will be employed to conduct current study. The descriptive survey is used to determine the

current status of large population demographic information of the population (Kelley 2003).

9

The tool of the study is consist of a descriptive survey, consists of two parts, close-ended

questions and open-ended questions. The close-ended questions will deal with the numbers of

arrivals in campus, time spends on campus, and issues they face during parking in public area of

the campus. On the other hand, open-ended questions will be designed to get their subjective

ideas that how improvement would be made to improve quality of parking facilities. The use of a

questionnaire as a tool to gather data in survey method as an instrument made it easy for

researchers to analyze. It provided subjective information, easy administration, and

generalization. It is also useful to measure attitudes which are difficult to measure with

observational techniques (Levin 2009).

Process of Data Collection

There are two gates through which people can enter in the public area of the university. It is

important for researchers to count the occupancy of each parking lot. Thus, for measuring the

time span in university, researchers will distribute each entering vehicle a questionnaire in which

time of their arrival will be mentioned. Researchers request drivers to return questionnaire when

they exist. In this way, the researcher will be able to note their total time spending on campus.

This process will benefit the study in two ways, in the first way when researchers distribute

questionnaire, they can measure the demand for parking lots in public area of the campus.

Secondly, this process will also be useful even when people do not fill the questionnaire but

researchers will note their exit time. The matter of the fact is that researchers will questionnaire

within two consecutive days. Researchers will remain present at two gates for two days, from 9:

am to 5: pm. The cost of this survey study will comprise of questionnaire papers and cost of

photocopies.

10 Analysis Techniques

The data will be analyzed through statistical techniques, mean and standard deviation. These

techniques highlight the numbers of people who use parking lots, regularly. On the other hand,

researchers can compare the demand ratio among different parking lots. Further, the discrete

choice model will be used to analyze the choice patterns of drivers to park in a specific parking

lot. We assume that safety, parking fee, location, the distance between their visited building and

nature of their visit are some factors which affect their parking behaviors.

On the next stage of the study, the geographical information system will be used to analyze the

spatial patterns of university campus area. GIS is a technology which enables researchers to

collect, analyze, store and interpret information regarding decision-making process and will be

useful to problem-solving. This data will prove useful when cross-examines with the survey data.

GIS information will inform about different elements or objects, their relationship and existence

in the university area (Folger 2009).

Outcomes and Contribution to the Study

The primary purpose of this research study is to highlight the issues and demand of parking lots

in public area of Beihang University. This study will be unique in the sense that it will involve

consumers’ opinion, i.e. consumers’ information about their parking attitudes and problems.

Further, they will also share their opinion that how parking facilities can be improved in future.

Results will also prove useful for policymakers and traffic management to improve parking

structure through the elimination of undesired elements and addition of required facilities. Thus,

this will grab the people who park on the campus and create traffic issues.

11

Bibliography

aijun, SHANG Huayan LINWenji HUANGH. 2007. "Empirical Study of Parking Problem on

University Campus." Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information

Technology 135-140.

AMPANSIRIRAT, Saksith CHALERMPONG & Nitipol. 2011. "Modeling Chulalongkorn

University Campus Parking Demand ." Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for

Transportation Studies 566-574.

Boamahb, Anthony Filipovitcha & Emmanuel Frimpong. 2016. "A systems model for achieving

optimum parking efficiency on campus: The case of Minnesota State University."

Transport Policy 86-96.

BUAA.Edu.CN. 2017. Beihang University. Accessed 11 13, 2017. http://ev.buaa.edu.cn/.

Eduardo Barata, LuisCruz, João-Pedro Ferreira. 2011. "Parking at the UC campus: Problems and

solutions." Cities 406-413.

Folger, Peter. 2009. Geospatial Information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS):

Current Issues and Future Challenges . New York: CRS Report for Congress.

Kelley, K., Clark, B., Brown, V. & Sitzia. J. 2003. "Good practice in the conduct and reporting

of survey research. ." International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 15(3), 261-266. .

12

Kuo, William Riggs & Jessica. 2015. "The impact of targeted outreach for parking mitigation on

the UC Berkeley campus." Case Studies on Transport Policy 151-158.

Levin, J. & Fox, J. A. 2009. Elementary statistics in social research, (9th ed.). . India:: Pearson

Education Inc.

Tahani Y. Al Hanaei. 2007. AN INVESTIGATION OF PARKING PROBLEMS AND

ALTERNATIVES AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF SHARjah. American University

of Sharjah, .

WilliamRiggs. 2014. "Dealing with parking issues on an urban campus: The case of UC

Berkeley." Case Studies on Transport Policy 168-176.