Car drivers’ Willingness-to-pay for increased garage parking bay and ramp/access road widths in the United Kingdom

Owners of parking garages are facing strategic decisions about the future of their assets that approaches end-of-life requiring repair or replacement. Meanwhile, the increasing size of cars is affecting structural loads and the quality of the user experience. One measure of consideration is investing in changing the operational geometry by increasing bay and/or ramp/access road widths reducing the available capacity but improving the quality of service. There is no clear insight into car drivers’ Willingness-to-Pay for this type of investments. This study quantifies car drivers’ WTP for suggested operational geometry changes. A stated choice experiment was developed including three attributes: price, bay width and ramp/access road width. A questionnaire including the experiment was distributed in two parking garages in the United Kingdom. In total, 253 respondents evaluated 1012 choice tasks comparing the current with an adapted situation. The evaluations are analysed using a latent class logit model. It appears that a garage’s attractiveness decreases when the price increases and increases when the width of bay and/or ramp/access road increases. Car drivers are Willing-to-Pay more for widening the bays than for widening the ramp/access roads. The results can be used by decision makers when comparing various scenarios for parking garage renovations.