Park & Ride

Park and Ride is already a viable option as demonstrated around the UK.
York and Oxford readily spring to mind as prime examples, but we now have Preston as a beacon project here in this county.
Walton le Dale and Portway serve the city and reduce the number of car journeys into urban centres, thereby helping to reduce congestion and pollution
(Lancashire draft LTP 2005)
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Preston Park and Ride offers over 1,000 parking spaces which encourages road users to convert to public transport for at least some of their journey into the city centre. Walton le Dale serves 810 and the Portway / Harrington Road sites add 390 places to the served area.

Typical features of the park and ride provision are:

  • Free and easy parking with typically £1-70 return bus fares
  • Easy access buses which leave every 6 minutes throughout the day
  • Secure parking, CCTV, fully illuminated, manned sites and ticket kiosks
  • Covered waiting area, seating, toilets, plus disabled and parent facilities
  • Operating 7.30 to 19.30 Mon to Sat. 9.30 to 17.30 Sun and Bank Holidays

Lancashire County Council’s Draft LTP2 has a headline target of constructing 8 park and ride schemes in Lancashire by 2016.
The stated aim in that document is to help introduce operations on busiest corridors to reduce congestion in the county’s urban centres.

Lancaster City Council has identified 4 areas where park and ride is in accordance with the local transport plan, and these locations are identified as –
Caton Road
Morecambe Road
Scotforth Road
Slyne Road

(Lancaster Council Policy Statement T8)

Research in 1993 for Lancashire County by Steer Davis Gleave investigated Rapid Transit Systems.

As part of their report the cost of park and ride infrastructure was defined.

With inflation, today’s capital cost of each site would cost approximately £1.5m

By using additional data from the Steer Davis Gleave report the provision of park and ride for Lancaster District can be calculated with a reasonable degree of confidence. Using the same allowances for inflation etc the approximate costs projected for the 4 park and ride sites mentioned are –

  • Infrastructure construction costs (excluding Land) of approx £6m
  • Operational costs (assuming 12 quality buses used) of approx £1.6m pa

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The estimates of patronage also based on work in the report would suggest a transfer of travel from car to park and ride of 14%. Based on 2001 base traffic flow data the immediate uptake would potentially reduce peak hour traffic into the city centre by up to 1900 vehicle movements both am and pm.

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