City centre travel and parking behaviour study

This summary report presents findings of a survey of city centre businesses and customers which aimed to:

• better understand how our community travels to and around our city centre
• explore any relationships between mode of travel and expected spend
• evaluate how changes to our city centre might help improve consumer activity in the future.

The self-selecting survey was carried out by our City Ambassadors in March 2022.

The findings indicate that local businesses underestimate their customers' persistence in finding a carpark, and that customers using off-street carparks – likely situated further away from their destination – spend more time and money in the city centre.

While customers from out of town spent more money per visit, local customers were likely to visit more often. Also, customers who opted to walk, cycle, e-scoot or catch the bus also tended to visit more often, for longer and to more destinations than those who used a private vehicle.

The study confirms that the parking behaviour of our community is similar to the outputs of studies of parking behaviour in other cities, nationally and internationally. This work (among others) will inform the development of Palmy’s parking framework.

City Centre Travel & Parking Behaviour Study(PDF, 1MB)