The effectiveness of the park and ride (P&R) system in increasing the use of public transport: Case of Manisa city center

The rapid increase in the private car ownership, population and urban sprawling due to the industrialization caused many problems in todays cities like noise, traffic congestion, exhaust gases-induced environmental pollution and long travel times which affects quality of life in a negative way. These problems being encountered at all cities are believed to be solved with sustainable transportation policies like effective public transportation system, transfer centers and park&ride facilities. Traditional transport policies like 'predict and provide' are ignored. The aims of this paper are to produce planning and design principles of park&ride facilities, to identify relevant criterias for optimal location, to reduce trips held by private cars, to increase public transportation usage and to integrate private and public transportation modes. After a general introduction, concept of transportation, progress of transportation throughout history and public transportation modes were focused on, definition and classification of park&ride systems were discussed, suggestion P&R system was improved for Manisa city center which is study area and lastly overall evaluation about results was made.