Why Parking is Essential to a Successful Sustainable Mobility Strategy

Seamless and sustainable. If that’s the vision of mobility that we are striving to achieve, then we need to work together on all things mobility. And that includes parking.

At the UITP Summit 2025 in Hamburg, UITP is launching a global Parking Transformation Working Group to better explore how parking can be used to incentivise sustainable urban mobility. Indeed, parking is a powerful tool that decides whether people use their car or not. Naturally, the availability, location, and pricing of car parking influences people’s mobility decisions. And this is a lever which cities can use to promote a modal shift to more sustainable transport.

Join the Working Group launch at the UITP Summit

Parking is an essential part of the mobility landscape because it affects someone’s preferred mode of mobility. While there will always be a need for parking, plentiful and free car parking disincentivises the use of public transport and active modes, at the same time taking up valuable urban space. And that exacerbates inequality. Studies find that low-cost parking benefits wealthier car owners, while the costs of maintaining parking are often paid for by all.

In short, parking can be a powerful tool to induce a modal shift to more sustainable modes, and in turn, cut emissions.

Parking also uses valuable urban space for vehicles that sit unoccupied 95% of the time. And of course, that’s not very efficient. Instead, cities could build affordable housing near mobility hubs and install green areas to combat the urban heat island effect.

For example, in Rio de Janeiro, parking legislation from 2019 loosened parking requirements, creating the space for 1,020 new apartments to be built by 2029.

Instituting parking can be as powerful as removing it, given the right strategy. In Bremen, Germany, new parking hubs for car-sharing vehicles are estimated to have taken 5,000 cars off the roads, freeing up 40km of street space and keeping cities moving more efficiently.

In many cities, parking is already on the agenda and it often goes hand in hand with sustainable mobility and housing policies. For example, in May 2025 the state of Washington in the United States passed a law on transit-oriented development to make it easier to build housing near public transport hubs – and that included cutting parking requirements.

São Paulo was the first megacity to remove parking minimums and instead institute maximums. In other words, the amount of parking spaces that residential and commercial spaces must offer.

That lowers the cost of housing – no need to build and maintain all that parking – as well as removes the incentive to own a car and allows developers to build more affordable housing closer to mobility hubs, further incentivising sustainable mobility.

For their part, Mexico City followed suit in 2017, and estimates predict that the parking policy could take 17,000 cars off the city’s streets every year through to 2030.

Or take Paris, where the planned removal of 60,000 parking spaces by 2030, new car-free zones, and higher fees for heavy vehicles are a part of the city’s efforts to build green spaces and promote walking and cycling. When it comes to increased parking fees, there are exceptions:

• Electric vehicles have a higher weight limit before incurring higher fees
• Residents, manual workers, and emergency services are exempt

In essence, this rule is targeted at the vehicles that the city wants to reduce, showing how parking policy can be used to change specific mobility behaviour.

Working alongside UITP’s Transport & Urban Life and Combined Mobility Committees, the new Working Group will be chaired by Parkin CEO Mohamed Abdulla Al Ali. The group will explore best practices and case studies from around the world on how cities can use parking to make mobility more sustainable.

Why is UITP launching a Working Group on parking? As a growing and evolving association, UITP does not just focus on mass public transport, but also its integration with active and shared mobility to ensure a holistic mobility system that supports diverse citizen needs.

And when it comes to parking, effective parking management supports improving accessibility, road safety, reduces air pollution, and improves people’s overall quality of life.

Platforms like UITP provide the opportunity for operators, authorities, and industry players to better collaborate on strategies to make mobility more seamless and sustainable. And the Global Parking Transformation Working Group will ensure that parking is a part of that strategy.

Join the Working Group launch at the UITP Summit