Speaker: Sena Önen Öz (Operations Management at McGill University Desautels Faculty of Management)
Title: Coins, Cards, or Apps: Impact of Payment Methods on Street Parking Occupancy and Search Times
Date: 20th of December, 2024 (Friday)
Time: 13:30-14:30
Place: EA409
Abstract: City dwellers often struggle with on-street parking in many cities, where they generally need to pay for parking in advance. However, drivers usually cannot accurately foresee how much parking time they need. Compared to traditional payment methods, i.e., cash and credit card through on-site meters, mobile payment applications provide more flexibility: Drivers can adjust their parking sessions remotely if a longer stay is in need. Utilizing data from an online survey and high-resolution transaction records provided by a municipal agency in a densely populated North American city, we analyze how different payment methods and hourly parking prices affect drivers’ parking behavior, street parking occupancy, and search time to find an available parking spot. Our findings reveal that mobile payments facilitate shorter parking duration, which in turn improves the turnover rate of parking spaces and reduces the overall search time. Furthermore, we observe that a driver’s parking behavior is not solely determined by price or payment method but rather by the interaction of both factors, making it essential for any policy analysis to consider this interplay. In particular, mobile payers are more sensitive to price changes than credit card payers, whereas cash payers are identified as the most sensitive to price changes. To provide further guidance to municipalities, we simulate different pricing mechanisms and show that progressive pricing and mobile payment adoption, along with pricing strategies, significantly impact both search time and occupancy compared to constant pricing.
Bio: Sena Önen Öz is a Ph.D. candidate in Operations Management at McGill University Desautels Faculty of Management. Her current research focuses on urban mobility, revenue management, and pricing, where she collaborates with industry partners to address real-world challenges. She plans to expand her work into urban sustainability and smart city operations. Her aim is to explore how innovative technologies can enhance logistics and reduce environmental impact. Prior to joining McGill, she was a research and teaching assistant in Industrial Engineering at Middle East Technical University, where she received both her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees.