Youre driving slowly along a street, looking for a place to park.
You come across a long stretch of parallel parking.
Ourresearchhas found a simple answer.
It doesnt matter which end just remember to leave yourself room to get out.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
Youll have already noticed the result based on traffic.
Image: Apple
How can we all park better?
Everyone is familiar with marked spaces, where painted lines show you where to park.
In our research, we focused on unmarked parallel parking, such as that found on most residential streets.
Thats because here we can control exactly where we position our cars.
The worst strategy for maximizing car parks?
Parking in the middle of the space.
Parking in the middle of the available space makes it harder to cram more cars in.
We found parking randomly in a space can produce slightly better outcomes.
Many drivers use this strategy subconsciously.
Under this scenario, we could fit the most cars onto any street.
We also analyzed what happens when theres only a small distance between driveways or intersections.
How significant is this technique?
Storing cars on valuable land is also apoor use of real estate.
We could also build extra car parks next to train stations or bus bays.
In Sydney, for instance,local residents and commutersvie withvisitorsfor the right to park in a given street.
