Parking Lot Allocation and Dynamic Parking Fee System Based on a Mechanism Design Approach Hiroaki Nakanishi and Toru Namerikawa Abstract—In this paper, we present a discussion on smart parking systems in urban traffic networks. Reduced vehicle speed when drivers search for parking lots contributes to increased traffic jams in recent urban traffic networks. We aim to shorten the searching time for parking lots, which is one of the causes of traffic jams, by allocating available parking lots to drivers. Furthermore, we design a dynamic parking fee system and redistribute parking lots to equalize the profits earned by managers of multiple parking lots in traffic-congested areas. We then finally confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm through numerical simulations. I. I NTRODUCTION Traffic congestion because of increasing traffic volume or underdeveloped road infrastructure is a recent global phenomenon. The problem is even more severe in particular urban areas with heavy concentrations of traffic. 30 percent of the traffic congestion in urban areas can be attributed to the deceleration of vehicles while searching for parking lots and parking spaces[1]. In addition, it takes an average of 7.8 minutes for drivers to find a desired parking space[2]. Such traffic jams cause environmental pollution and economic loss to society, requiring urgent solutions. As a solution to these problems, intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have been recently developed. These systems integrates people, road infrastructure, and vehicles, ensuring cooperation based on real-time traffic information obtained through information communication technologies(ICT), and are generally consid- ered for addressing problems related to traffic management, advanced serviceability, and other forms of transportation. One of the ITS technologies that has recently gained considerable attention is the ”Smart Parking System ” . The smart parking system is a system that collects information related to drivers searching for parking lots, including real- time parking lot usage information, and suppresses traffic congestions using such information. By allocating and guid- ing drivers to the appropriate parking lot or by dynamically changing the parking fee based on the degree of congestion, smart parking systems can alleviate traffic congestion. Several studies on the smart parking system[3] have been conducted. The paper[4] suggests that parking lot search times can be shortened by presenting available parking lot information to the driver searching for a parking lot. As conventional research on parking lot allocation, the paper[5] presented the basic concept and structure of a smart parking system and defined the optimization problem H. Nakanishi and T. Namerikawa are with Department of System De- sign Engineering, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8522, Japan hiroakin@nl.sd.keio.ac.jp and namerikawa@sd.keio.ac.jp associated with parking lot allocation for shortening parking lot search times, which contribute to traffic congestion. However, when a parking lot is allocated, only the demand and interests of the driver searching for the parking lot is considered, failing to include provisions for the parking lot manager. On the other hand, the design of a dynamic parking fee system, presented in paper[6], prevents the concentration of a specific parking lot by changing the parking fee according to the full occupancy rate of the parking lot. The paper[7] focused on minimizing the monetary cost borne by the driver and maximizing the utilization rate of the parking lot through the design of an appropriate dynamic parking fee according to the vacant or full ratio of each parking lot. However, a theoretical analysis was not performed to validate the design of the algorithm for a dynamic parking fee system in the paper cited above. Consequently, we propose a parking lot allocation algo- rithm that considers the benefits for the driver searching for a parking lot and the manager of a parking lot based on matching theory. In addition, by proposing a redistribution algorithm for parking lots based on a mechanism design approach, we develop a system for parking lot allocation that is theoretically desirable according to the mechanism design approach, and we attempt to equalize and maximize the profit of the parking lot manager in the traffic network. II. PROBLEM FORMULATION Fig. 1. Traffic network around Ginza station 2019 American Control Conference (ACC) Philadelphia, PA, USA, July 10-12, 2019 978-1-5386-7928-9/$31.00 ©2019 AACC 2683