Transport Demand Management in National Parks Dissertation

Transport Demand Management in National Parks - Dissertation Example Lyndhurst is a civil parish and village located at England’s new Forest in Hampshire. The village forms the administrative center of the New Forest, which bears the district council. It is a popular tourist attraction center and has numerous independent shops, cafes, hotels, restaurants, pubs, art galleries and an 18-hole golf course. These facilities cater for the demands of local population and the tourists. According to the Census data of 2001, Lyndhurst had a population of 2,973 of which, 37% were economically active, 20% are the retired and only 2% are not employed. The average age is 47 years. 77% of the property is owner occupied while 23% is rented (COUNCIL FOR THE PROTECTION OF RURAL ENGLAND, 1988). Lyndhurst is 14 kilometers away from Southampton city to the North-east. Geographically, Lyndhurst village forms the meeting point on the route A35 which runs from the Southampton City to the northeast to Lymington town, situated on the south coast. This link creates a very large volume of traffic, which prompts the usage of one way. Most of the motorists miss parking spaces while seeking for refreshments, meals or even when making stopovers. During season of summer, the traffic swells because of the tourist inflow in to the region. As a result, there is limited space for parking. Transport Demand Management is a strategy that applies programs, policies, products and services to trim down the travel order especially among the private vehicle users or restructure the travel demand in to time and space. Actually, the Transport Demand management deals with Transit improvements, Transit incentives, Pay-as-drive insurance, Parking management/pricing and Road pricing. Several studies points out to the growth of economy as the primary reason behind establishing a good parking management, organization, supervision and parking pricing without incorporating other factors like the repercussions on health, time spending and emotional frustrations that come up with limited parking space. According to Fischer (2009),  the Transport Demand Management strategy controls the parking prices and the amount of parking available in all the public places across the UK. Transport Demand Management benefits the local communities by lowering their healthcare costs, reducing traffic congestion, increasing their return from investments on transit, carpooling, cycling and public transport systems (Black & Schreffler, 2010). The employers may get low parking rates and better employee retention where as the individuals gain by saving time and costs of delay, convenience and good health (Black, 1997). This collateral research paper explores the proposition of Transport Demand Management is to push for best option available towards solving problems related to the limited parking space in Lyndhurst. Policies on Parking Management The developers should provide the localities with the minimum space for every type of development depending on the magnitude of the development. The costs of developments determines the pricing for parking spaces, as such, parking seem to be offered