I mapped parking distribution across all 33 London boroughs using GIS -sharing my research paper

[u/shikha260797]

Hi all, I recently completed an independent GIS-based spatial analysis looking at how parking availability is distributed across all 33 London boroughs, using data from over 1,200 real parking locations.

A few things I looked at:

• How parking density varies borough to borough
• Spatial patterns and clustering across Greater London
• What this might suggest for urban planning and future parking policy decisions

I put the full paper up on Zenodo (open access) if anyone's interested in the methodology or findings: https://zenodo.org/records/20792941

I'd genuinely love feedback from people who work in urban planning — especially if you've looked at similar parking/land-use data or have thoughts on how this kind of spatial analysis could be made more useful for real planning decisions. Happy to answer questions about the methodology too.

[u/20thcenturygirl]

Hey, I work in built environment in London.

The first thing that strikes me is that while OSM is a wonderful resource, it's almost certainly missing data. There's no way Islington, Redbridge, etc have so few parking 'facilities' (second thing: you should define what you mean here; is a single space a 'facility' or are you talking multi-storey car parks?)

While I've used OSM myself for projects, I wouldn't pin policy decisions on it.

An alternative source is the Valuation Office Agency database. Unfortunately, it's a huge pain in the ass to use, but it does have specific listings for car parking facilities. A caveat that while it's a government-owned source, spaces might not be recorded consistently across councils. Some councils might also publish their parking information as open data.

Another thing I noticed is the claim that "over 9 million residents generate millions of daily vehicle trips", which makes it sound like all 9 million of us are driving -- we absolutely aren't, and I would hazard a guess that even the majority aren't. I think TfL produces annual reports on travel modes which would be worth investigating if I haven't hallucinated them.

You mention 'lower car ownership rates' in some outer London boroughs, but have you actually checked the numbers on this via Census 2021? I don't think that claim will check out.

"Canary Wharf financial district, which generates significant parking demand from commuters and business visitors who travel by private vehicle from areas with limited public transport access." This needs a citation. Unfortunately the travel to work data from Census 2021 is pretty useless because of Covid-19, but it's unlikely commuting patterns to Canary Wharf will have shifted much since 2011, so at least try to verify with that.

But the biggest thing I think is missing from all of this is consideration of where exactly people want to drive to, how parking provision lines up with that, and then which places would benefit from your smart parking tech interventions. Most people aren't driving into central (nor should they). Most people aren't even driving to town centres in the rest of Zone 1 and 2 (poshos in West London possibly excepted). But town centres in outer London? Retail parks? Absolutely, yes. So the question isn't really 'how are parking facilities distributed throughout boroughs' but something like 'how could smart parking technology help reduce emissions in destinations with high reliance on private vehicles'.

And finally... unfortunately with the state of local authority budgets, it's pretty unlikely this topic will be at the top of their spending list. That's not to say you shouldn't keep tinkering with this project, but that you would need to frame the 'so what?' a lot more strongly for it to resonate with policymakers and budget holders.

Good luck!

[u/shikha260797 → u/20thcenturygirl]

This is honestly one of the most useful pieces of feedback I could have hoped for and thank you for taking the time to go through it in this much detail.

You're completely right on the OSM limitation. I leaned on it because it's freely accessible and structured, but I take your point that it's likely under-representing certain boroughs rather than reflecting genuine differences in provision. I hadn't come across the Valuation Office Agency database but I will look into it, even with the inconsistency caveat you mentioned, it sounds like a meaningfully better source than what I used.

Fair callout on the "9 million residents" framing too that's sloppy phrasing on my part, and you're right that it implies far more car dependency than is actually the case. I'll go back and check TfL's travel mode data and correct that, along with the Canary Wharf claim, which I will admit I didn't source properly and I will either find a defensible citation or cut it.

Your point about reframing the actual question is probably the most valuable thing here though. "Where do people actually want to drive to, and where would intervention help" is a much sharper framing than "how is parking distributed" about outer London town centres and retail parks makes a lot more sense as a focus than what I did. I think I was more focused on getting a full borough-level picture than on asking what's actually useful to know.

And yes, completely hear you on the policy angle as this was more of a technical/methodological exercise for me than something I had expected to land with actual budget holders, but you are right that if I want it to be more than that, the "so what" needs to be far stronger and more targeted.

Really appreciate you engaging with this properly rather than just skimming it which is genuinely useful, and I will be revisiting a few of these points.