Locating and Investigating the Functional Role of Park and Ride Stops and Multi-Purpose Parking Lots in Shiraz

An important issue creating mush problems throughout the city of Shiraz, which is also an issue that officials of the city are struggling to overcome, is the study of the traffic status of Shiraz, and also the study of multi-purpose stops and park and rides available throughout the city in order to fulfil the present and future needs of Shiraz. This shows the necessity for studies to be conducted on the matter. Hence, the present article aims at locating and investigating the functional role of multi-purpose stops and park and rides in Shiraz. To achieve this goal, preliminary studies were conducted on the theoretical foundations of the problem, and it was then attempted to identify the influential indicators. Modeling, designing, and creating the necessary database in GIS were applied to enter Shiraz city data layers and attempted to identify potential areas for building multi-functional parking lots and stops by applying coefficients influencing each of these indices using multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM). The results indicate that the appropriate spots for establishing Park & Ride locations are Central, North and North East of Shiraz, and based on field studies, 54 potential points outside of the city traffic limit and 39 points inside and in total 93 potential points were selected and prioritized.