Resource Availability Modeling and Optimization in a Car Park Management Problem

This paper addresses the modeling and optimization of resource availability in car parks, serving different priority classes of customers. The authors examine various formulations of the problem concerning two general objectives: a) increasing the availability for high priority customers and b) maximizing the aggregate service level. In the current context, priority classes are specified according to different space reservation options provided by the parking management company (monthly parking, hourly parking, parking on demand, etc.). Based on actual historical traffic data and under certain methodological assumptions, they calculate the arrival and service rates for each class of customers. These are subsequently used as inputs in a Markov model that describes the evolution of the number of free parking spaces in time, given that some spaces are reserved for higher priority classes. Optimization techniques and OR heuristics are applied to deal with numerical aspects of the associated reservation planning issues.