RESEARCH ON THE DEMAND FOR PARKING LOTS OF SHOPPING CENTRES

Over the last decade, in the cities of Lithuania the number of shopping centres has been increasingly growing, they were provided with large parking lots. The development of shopping centres has formed a new structural and very concentrated urban element the result of activity of which has not been widely studied from the transportation point of view. When implementing a sustainable urban development the authors of the article aimed at ensuring the effective use of the parking lots of shopping centres during twenty four hours. For this purpose, an empirical research was carried out which resulted in a comprehensive analysis of the parking lots of 49 shopping centres in Vilnius City. The research used observation method to determine a design capacity of the parking lots of shopping centres, their occupancy, to additionally defi ne the number of residents living in the closest proximity to the parking lot, the number of flats, the value of flats, the number of working population, the demand for parking spaces, occupancy of the parking lots with cars, etc. The expert method was used to select the main criteria characterizing interaction of the parking lots of shopping centres with the multi-storey housing area. With the help of expert questionnaire the weights and significances of criteria were determined. Using the multiple-criteria methods a priority use of the parking lots of shopping centres for parking of passenger cars was calculated and assessed. The article gives development priorities and outlines the strategy of implementing the given recommendations. This is one of the first attempts to use the parking lots of shopping centres to park passenger cars at night. If the suggested system is put into practice it would help to reduce up to 20% the demand for parking spaces in the urbanized multi-storey housing areas.