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An Investigation of Citizen Engagement
Delivered by Smart Parking System
In case of Shenzhen
A study submitted in partial fulfilment
Of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Management
At
THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
By
ZIYU NIE
September 2016
Abstract
Introduction: Shenzhen is typical mega city in China which is facing the
challenging from limited public parking spaces and explosive growth of vehicle
ownership. Deploying new smart parking system (SPS) to alleviate parking difficulty
is new trend as a solution for the local government. However, few studies
investigating the influence of citizen engagement within the deploying the SPS
services.
Objectives: The primary aim of this project is to identify the main aspects that
influence the citizens’ engagement level of the SPS services in Shenzhen. In order to
achieve this research aim, there were some objectives need to be accomplished.
Methods: The investigating of this project was based on the collected data. Therefore,
the inductive approach was adopted as the research approach. The online
questionnaire and personal interviews were designed to collect the quantitative and
qualitative data to support this project. These data were analysed and discussed based on
the objectives and the themes developed from in literature review to develop the related
findings.
Results: The results of analysis and discussion showed a low citizen engagement level
of the SPS services in Shenzhen. The weakness of awareness, trust, sustainability and
accessibility caused the low citizen engagement level of the SPS services. The local
government believed that the SPS services can alleviate the traffic pressures to some
extent if the SPS services can change the parking behaviour of citizens. Practically , the
SPS services do change the parking behaviour of the users, but it does not really alleviate
the traffic pressures in Shenzhen. The services cannot satisfy the citizens from different
background, which also affected the popularization of the SPS services. Therefore, as for
most citizens, the SPS services were considered as an alternate option to assist their
parking in Shenzhen at present, rather than the first option for them.
Conclusion: This project has successfully developed and presented the possible
aspects that influence the citizens’ engagement level of the SPS services in
Shenzhen. Meanwhile, this project has provided the related recommendations for
improving the citizen engagement level of the SPS services. However, there were
some limitations existed in this project which affected the data quality. Therefore,
as for the future studies of similar topics, the data need to be collected by different
ways.
Acknowledgments
Over the past year, I have received much help, guidance and encouragement from
lots of people in Sheffield. I would like to express my gratitude to my dissertation
supervisor, Dr. John Holliday for his support and guidance throughout this project
from an idea to a completed work. In addition, I would like to thank all of my
teachers and classmates over the year. They inspired me and opened up a whole new
world for me. Meanwhile, I would like to thank my parents. I appreciate that you
give me the opportunity to study abroad and support my study for the past years.
During the processes of this project, I want to express my thanks to Yufei An, who
provided me with encouragement, ideal suggestions to the challenge and supporting
of data collection. Finally, thanks to every participant who involved in this project,
without your support, I would have not been able to accomplish this project.
Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 3
Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1 - Introduction................................................................................................. 7
1.1 Research Context and Motivation..........................................................................7
1.2 Research Aim........................................................................................................8
1.3 Research Objectives ..............................................................................................8
1.4 Structure of this Dissertation .................................................................................9
Chapter 2- Literature Review ........................................................................................10
2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 10
2.2 The Current Situations and Challenges of Parking Spaces in Shenzhen ............... 10
2.2.1 Parking Supply and Demand......................................................................... 10
2.2.2 Parking Space Using .................................................................................... 11
2.3 The Issues of Current Parking Policy in China..................................................... 12
2.4 The Overview of SPS in Shenzhen ...................................................................... 14
2.5 The Operation Principle of SPS in Shenzhen ....................................................... 15
2.5.1 Parking Guidance and Information System (PGIS) ....................................... 15
2.5.2 Mobile Parking System (MPS) ...................................................................... 16
2.6 The Reward Policy within the SPS services ......................................................... 19
2.7 The Parking Preferences of Chinese Vehicle Drivers ........................................... 20
2.8 The Influence of the SPS on Urban Traffic Issues................................................ 20
2.9 Citizen Engagement ............................................................................................ 21
Chapter 3 - Methodology and Implementation ..............................................................23
3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 23
3.2 Research Approach ............................................................................................. 23
3.3 Research Methodology........................................................................................ 23
3.4 Data Collection ................................................................................................... 24
3.5 Data Analysis ...................................................................................................... 25
Chapter 4 – Consideration and Ethical Issues ................................................................26
4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 26
4.2 Practicalities........................................................................................................ 26
4.3 Ethical Issues ...................................................................................................... 26
Chapter 5 – Results and Discussion ..............................................................................28
5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 28
5.2 Descriptive Analysis of Quantitat ive Research Data ............................................ 28
5.2.1. Gender ......................................................................................................... 29
5.2.2. Age.............................................................................................................. 29
5.2.3. Annual Income ............................................................................................ 30
5.2.4. Have you ever use mobile app to assist you parking in Shenzhen? ............... 31
5.2.5. Age, Gender and Annual Income of the SPS users ....................................... 31
5.2.6. Where do you first time know the SAS services of Shenzhen? ..................... 32
5.2.7. How the frequencies do you use the SPS services? ....................................... 33
5.2.8. What is the main parking purpose of using the SPS？ .................................. 34
5.2.9. How long is duration of parking usually by the SPS? ................................... 34
5.2.10. What advantages do you take from the SPS services?................................. 35
5.2.11. What limits are existing within the SPS services?....................................... 35
5.2.12. Age, Gender and Annual Income of SPS non-users .................................... 36
5.2.13. Why do you never use the SPS services?.................................................... 38
5.2.14. Which functions and attributes can attract you to try to use this system? .... 38
5.2.15. Do you have any recommendation and expectancy for the SPS services? ... 39
5.3 Thematic Analysis of Qualitative Research Data ................................................. 39
5.3.1 Trust ............................................................................................................. 40
5.3.2 Awareness .................................................................................................... 41
5.3.3 Sustainability ................................................................................................ 42
5.3.4 Accessibility ................................................................................................. 43
Chapter 6- Conclusions.................................................................................................44
6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 44
6.2 Conclusions ........................................................................................................ 44
6.3 Recommendations ............................................................................................... 46
6.4 Limitation and Future research ............................................................................ 46
References ....................................................................................................................47
Appendixes...................................................................................................................53
Appendix I: Ethics Application ................................................................................. 53
Appendix II: Ethics Approval Letter ......................................................................... 59
Appendix III: Participant Information Sheet .............................................................. 60
Appendix IV: Participant Consent Form.................................................................... 62
Appendix V: Questionnaire ....................................................................................... 64
Appendix VI: Address & First Employment Destination Details ............................... 67
Appendix VII: Access to Dissertation Form ............................................................. 69
Chapter 1 - Introduction
1.1 Research Context and Motivation
According to the report of the EU SME Centre (2015) and Economic Times (2011),
China has retained the status as the world’s largest automotive market and producer
country since 2009. The statistics from China Association of Automobile
Manufacturers (2016) reported that the total sales and production of automobiles of
China increased and achieved 24,597,600 and 24,503,300 units respectively, which
larger than that combined of the USA and Japan market (OICA, 2016). Meanwhile,
the vehicle ownership in China achieved double-digit growth for the past decades
(Wang & Liu, 2014).
The explosive growth of vehicle ownership has resulted in the rapidly increased
demand of parking spaces in most Chinese cities, particularly in mega cities, such as
Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou (Wang & Liu, 2014). The increasing
demand of parking spaces aggravated the traffic congestion and air pollution because
of needing longer driving times to find available parking spaces. Therefore, more
driving time to find available car parking spaces is getting more unavoidable for the
car drivers in most Chinese mega cities, which could seriously influence the life
quality and accessibility levels of the citizens (Verhoef, Nijkamp & Rietveld, 1995;
Miles et al., 1998; Ison & Wall, 2002). In this context, more efficient parking
availability information sharing is getting more important to minimize the searching
time of car drivers and traffic congestion when the parking spaces are not enough to
meet the demand of the vehicle ownership’s explosive growth (Mo, Zhang & Yan,
2008).
Shenzhen is typical mega city in China which is facing the challenging from limited
public parking spaces and explosive growth of vehicle ownership. Shenzhen is the
first special economic zone in southern of the China mainland (Shenzhen, 2016). By
the end of 2014, the permanent residents of Shenzhen reached 10.78 million from a
tiny border town with 31,000 people in the past 35 years (SZTJ, 2015). Nanshan
district of Shenzhen in 2014 reached GDP per capita of ¥ RMB 308,000 ($ US
49,000) which overtook that of Hong Kong and catching up with that of Singapore
(Aston, 2015). The significant economic developments also accelerated the
increasing of vehicle ownership. In past decade, the vehicle ownership of Shenzhen
approached over 20% annual growth. By the end of 2014, the total civil motor
vehicles in Shenzhen exceeded 3.1 million (SZTJ, 2015). However, the current
parking policy in China leads to that over 90% parking facilities were built for
private function only (Wang & Liu, 2014). This also intensifies the conflicts between
the parking needs of car drivers and the supply of public parking spaces.
In order to relieve the traffic pressure caused by the lack of parking spaces, Shenzhen
is the first city in China to adopt Smart Parking System (SPS), which provide more
smart and convenient parking services for citizens (Zhang, Wang & Wu, 2015).
Hence, Shenzhen is selected as the case city for this project.
On the other hand, most current studies and literatures about Shenzhen’s SPS were
concentrating on the operation principles and government policy perspectives.
Therefore, this dissertation tries to investigate the perspective of citizens about SPS
services.
1.2 Research Aim
Based on the research context and motivation which mentioned above, this research
attempts to identify the main aspects that influence the citizens’ engagement level of
the SPS services in Shenzhen. Meanwhile, this research will develop the poss ible
recommendations based on the investigating results to improve the citizen
engagement level and the popularization of SPS in China.
1.3 Research Objectives
In order to achieve and monitor the above research aim of this project, this research
aims to realize the following objectives:
1. To identify the current challenges of parking spaces and policy in Shenzhen.
2. To identify the operation principle of SPS and its influence on the urban
traffics problems.
3. To investigate what type of citizens use SPS services most often. Why do
they would like to use SPS services?
4. To investigate what type of citizens do not use SPS services. Why do not they
use PSP?
5. To investigate how did the users know and use the SPS services.
6. To investigate the advantages within the SPS services can benefits in the
participants within the SPS services.
7. To provide the future development strategies of the SPS services to attract
more citizens to engage into the services.
1.4 Structure of this Dissertation
This dissertation contains six chapters which interact with each other to achieve the
research aim and objectives. The details of the structure of this dissertation
demonstrate as follow：
Chapter 1：Introduction
This chapter illustrates the research motivation by describing the issues of the
context and building achievable research aim and objectives. In addition, this chapter
introduces the structure of the complete dissertation.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
This chapter will review the related literatures and studies to discuss and identify the
related arguments and themes for better and deeper understanding.
Chapter 3: Methodology and Implementation
This chapter will outline the chosen research approach and methodology which will
be deployed to collect and analyse the data for this project. Besides, this chapter will
describe the specific implementation methods of data collection and analysis.
Chapter 4: Consideration and Ethical Issues
This chapter will illustrate the issues of practicalities and ethical in order to reduce
the risk of research.
Chapter 5: Results and Discussion
This chapter will analyse the quantitative and qualitative data according to the
selected analysis methods. The analysed results will be attempted to identify the
relationship with the arguments, as well as the possible outcomes.
Chapter 6: Conclusions
The chapter will develop the research conclusions based on the results and discussion
of the research and provide the recommendations. Meanwhile, this chapter will
indicate the limitation of this research to help the future similar research.
Chapter 2- Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
This chapter will provide a comprehensive review of existing literatures in order to
gain deeper understanding of the parking difficulty and SPS services of Shenzhen.
Meanwhile, this chapter will provide a descriptions and theories that clarify the
effects of the SPS services on alleviating urban traffic pressures. Besides, at the end
of this chapter, it will review the literatures about citizen engagement to identify its
critical elements as the themes for the further research. This project will review the
literatures mainly from official publishes, journal articles and research reports to
accomplish the related objectives.
2.2 The Current Situations and Challenges of Parking Spaces in Shenzhen
The deputy chief engineer of Shenzhen Urban Transformation Planning Centre
(SUTPC), Lu (2013) indicated that the current Shenzhen’s parking spaces were
facing challenges from two aspects. The first aspect was parking supply and demand.
The second aspect was parking space using.
2.2.1 Parking Supply and Demand
According to the report of Liang and Sun (2014) at China Urban Transportation
Planning Annual Conference, they summarized the development paths of parking
supply and demand in Shenzhen. The paths can separate into three stages.
The first stage was called Parking Happened Stage. In this stage, the increasing of
parking spaces can keep up with the expansion of the vehicle ownership (Liang &
Sun, 2014). Shenzhen experienced this stage before 2001. Figure 1 demonstrates the
development paths of parking spaces and vehicle ownership from 1999 to 2014
(SZTJ, 2015; SZTJ, 2006; SZTJ, 2003; Lu, 2013). As you can see from this figure,
before 2001, the number of parking spaces and vehicle ownerships in Shenzhen were
approximate. Therefore, the parking supply and demand in Shenzhen was balanced at
this stage.
The second stage is called Parking Developing Stage. In this stage, the gap between
parking supply and demand appeared and the parking issues also were proposed
(Liang & Sun, 2014). After 2001, Shenzhen’s vehicle ownership entered the rapid
growth period. As you can see from the Figure 1, the vehicle ownership in Shenzhen
had doubled within 4 years, which increased from 360,668 units in 2001 to 770,877
units in 2005 (SZTJ, 2006). In order to fill the gap, the local government proposed
the integration of parking policies about planning, development, managing and
charging in 2004 (SUTPC, 2004).
The third stage is called Invalid Control Stage. In this stage, the increasing of
Shenzhen’s vehicle ownership accelerated. The gap between parking supply and
demand has been rapidly widened, which forced the original parking policy failure
(Liang & Sun, 2014). As you can see from the Figure 1, the vehicle ownership
increased over 200 million in 10 years, from 770,877 units in 2005 to 311, 1488 units
in 2014 (SZTJ, 2015). However, in 2014, the total number of parking spaces in
Shenzhen only was around 99, 0000. The gap between parking supply and demand
expanded to over 200, 0000 units (SZHK, 2014).
2.2.2 Parking Space Using
There are many literatures have introduced the methods to measure the use efficiency
of parking spaces. Tom V. Mathew (2014) indicated an index to quantify the use
efficiency of parking space, which was parking turnover rate.
Parking turnover rate is the average number of car parked in a certain time period to
the number of parking spaces on a day (Ottosson, Chen, Wang, & Lin, 2013). This
ratio can express the use efficiency of a parking space via quantifying the number of
vehicles parked in a certain parking space within certain time duration.
Figure 2 shows the daily parking turnover rate of on-street parking spaces in
Shenzhen and some other places (Lu, 2013). As you can see from this figure, the
daily parking turnover rate of on-street parking spaces in Shenzhen only was 2.4,
which lagged far behind the average parking turnover rate of other major cities.
Therefore, the use efficiency of parking spaces is also weakness in Shenzhen.
General speaking, the current situations and challenges of parking spaces in
Shenzhen are that the development of parking spaces is far behind the increasing of
vehicle ownership. Meanwhile, the using of on-street parking spaces in Shenzhen is
inefficient.
However, the above challenges of parking spaces in Shenzhen are not simply the
issues of parking supply and demand or parking behaves o f car drivers. They show
the shortages of the government’s policy on parking planning and management
(Wang & Liu, 2014). The next section will introduce and identify the current issues
of government’s parking policy on parking planning and management.
2.3 The Issues of Current Parking Policy in China
The current parking policy in China is still focus on the regulation (Wang & Liu,
2014;Wang & Yuan, 2013). The regulation shows the current characteristics of
Chinese parking policy from two aspects.
The one aspect is highly regulated parking quantity. The parking quantity is
regulated by local governments to set their own minimum parking requirements
according to local parking situations. Based on these minimum parking requirements,
the property or parking space developers have to provide a sufficient number of
parking lots to meet the requirements and future demand (Wang & Yuan, 2013)
The other aspect is policy intervention on parking price. The policy intervention on
parking development leads to low parking charges, which even cannot recoup the
development cost of parking facilities (Wang & Yuan, 2013). Therefore, the
development of parking spaces is unprofitable for developers and private investors.
Figure 3 shows the average hourly fees in selected cities worldwide (ITDP-China,
2015). As you can see from the figure, Chinese cities have very low parking charges
rate despite they have seriously parking issues. The regulations of parking policy
leads to the market failure in China (Wang & Yuan, 2013).
Furthermore, facing the widening gaps between parking spaces and vehicle
ownership, the local government normally increases the minimum parking
requirements continuously in newly developed areas to manage these parking issues
(Wang & Yuan, 2013). However, the facts prove that the parking policy is
ineffective solution.
Firstly, the increased minimum parking requirements only affect the quantity of
parking space provided but not the distribution manner of parking resources, which
aggravate the misallocation and wasting of parking resources. Wang, Liu (2014) and
Lu (2013) indicated in their studies that because of the parking marking failure in
China, the property developers and private investors are not interested in building
and investing public parking facilities. On the other hand, under the strict minimum
parking requirements, property developers are forced to provide a sufficient number
of parking facilities for private use. Hence, in China, the parking facilities for private
use account for most of the total parking resources. The Table 1 shows the
comparison of parking spaces by public and private uses in selected cities worldwide
(Lu, 2013; PMDO, 2016; Newpress, 2007; TD, 2016). As you can see from the table,
the parking spaces in China for private uses accounted for over 90% in total, which
in contrast with foreign cities. This phenomenon aggravates the issues on parking
supply and demand in China.
Secondly, the low parking prices cannot be adjusted according to the market needs in
China because of the parking market failure and strict price regulated (Wang & Liu,
2014). The study by Kelly and Clinch (2009) noted that parking turnover rate can
change along with the changing of parking prices. Specifically, high parking fees can
improve the parking turnover rate, which means the parking using efficiency
improved.
Overall, the facts of current Chinese parking policy is that it is not an effective tool to
manage the current parking problems. Conversely, it limits the developments of
parking market in China. Meanwhile, it not only aggravates the conflicts between
parking supply and demand, also reduces the parking using efficiency.
2.4 The Overview of SPS in Shenzhen
Facing the conflicts and limitations of parking capacity and policy, Shenzhen has
attempted to appeal new technology to alleviate parking difficulty by improving the
using efficiency of existing on-street parking spaces in the four centre districts (Mo
& Su, 2009). Shenzhen was the first Chinese city which deployed the government-
led SPS and related supporting measures since 1st January, 2015 (SZRTC, 2014a).
The local government hope the SPS services can ease the traffic congestion and
parking difficulty by providing drivers real-time parking availability information to
reduce their search time on road (Mark, 2001; Lu, 2013). Meanwhile, Shenzhen
set award policy for short-time parking which hope to improve parking turnover rate
(SZRTC, 2014b).
2.5 The Operation Principle of SPS in Shenzhen
According to the introduction by Shenzhen Road Traffic Management Centre
(2014a), the SPS services contain two components, which are Parking Guidance and
Information System (PGIS) and mobile parking system (MPS).
2.5.1 Parking Guidance and Information System (PGIS)
Torbay was the first place where adopted PGIS in the world (Rayman &Stannett,
1981). It has been widely deployed in the Europe, the North American and Japan
since 1970s (Axhausen & Polak, 1995). The main purpose of PGIS is to provide car
drivers the real time availability information of parking spaces, which help them to
search available parking spaces and reduce their search time on road (Mark, 2001;
Lu, 2013). As a result, the traffic congestion and air pollution would be reduced
caused by the reduction of search time on road (Mo & Su, 2009).
Figure 4 demonstrates the system architecture of PGIS in Shenzhen. As you can see
from this figure, the architecture has four main components, which consists of garage
date controller (GDC), centre compute system (CCS), variable-message signs (VMS)
and other information dissemination system. Mo and Su (2009) indicated that the
CCS plays the most important role in the PGIS, which links up the other three
components. As for the PGIS in Shenzhen, The GDC is responsible for collecting
real-time parking data from parking spaces. The CCS processes the real-time parking
data into useful information, such as the location and number of available parking
spaces. The information then will be provided to car drivers by the VMS and other
information dissemination system, which includes the websites, mobile terminal
broadcast and in-car devices (MO & Su, 2009).
Figure 4 - System Architecture of PGIS in Shenzhen
2.5.2 Mobile Parking System (MPS)
The MPS plays the role of mobile terminal in the SPS services of Shenzhen, which
enable vehicle drivers to complete all parking operations via mobile devices
(SZRTC, 2016a). Figure 5 demonstrates the system architecture of MPS in
Shenzhen. As you can see from the figure, this system contains components of
software and hardware. The hardware mainly includes the CCS, communication base
station (CBS) and parking sensor. The software is mobile parking application called
Yitingche (Shenzhen Daily, 2014).
The parking sensor consists of geomagnetism detection, which can check the parking
space whether is occupied or available. The real time checking results will be
uploaded to the CBS consistently via technique of radio-frequency identification
(RFID). On the other hand, the CCS collects the data, which includes the status of
each parking space and payment situations via mobile internet. Then the CCS needs
to do systematic and comprehensive control and management fo r over 34,000 on-
street parking spaces, such as providing feedback information to parking inspectors
to avoid illegal parking, navigation of parking spaces and releasing of
parking guidance information (SZRTC, 2016a).
Figure 5 - System Architecture of MPS in Shenzhen
As for the mobile parking application, according to the description from Shenzhen
Road Traffics Centre (2016a), it provides vehicle drivers the following main
functions:
Online payment for parking
Real-time availability information of parking spaces searching
Navigation to selected parking space
Alarm reminder of parking time expires
Figure 6 shows the on-street parking space which involved in the SPS services of
Shenzhen. As the figure shows that every parking space supported by the SPS
services in Shenzhen has unique six-digit identification yellow ID. The users only
need to input the unique ID of the selected parking space and the parking time length
into the mobile parking application to finish the payment process of parking. The
Figure 7 shows the payment interface of the mobile parking application. Users can
input the parking space ID and select parking time length which they want within
this payment interface. Then the application will automatically calculate and display
the parking fees for users. Therefore, the users can check and pay the parking fees
immediately.
Figure 6 – The Roadside Parking Space of the SPS services
Figure 7 - Payment Interface of the Mobile Parking Application
As results, implementing the MPS brings the following benefits to Shenzhen (Zhang,
Wang & Wu, 2015):
Cost reduction: because of the MPS can provide illegal parking information
to traffic wardens automatically, thus the government can save the
management costs, such as labour costs.
Easy operation: the users finish all parking payment processes by the
application without any further operation.
Standardization of the parking operation: users finish the parking process by a
uniform way without manual operation, which can avoid arbitrary charges.
2.6 The Reward Policy within the SPS services
In order to enhancing the parking turnover rate of the existing parking spaces, the
local government has established the reward policy to encourage the parking
behaviour of short-time parking and restrain the long-time parking in Shenzhen
(SZRTC, 2014b). The new piecewise parking charges policy within the SPS services
had been proposed by the local traffic management department (SZRTC, 2016b).
According to the official data released (SZRTC, 2016b), the Figure 8 (Lu, 2013)
compares the difference between the new reward parking charges policy within the
SPS services and the normal parking charges policy of normal parking spaces in
Shenzhen. As you can see from the figure, before 90 minutes, the reward parking
charges policy provides cheaper parking charges rate than the normal parking
charges policy. After 90 minutes, as for the users of the SPS services, the parking fee
will continually increase based on the finally parking time length. But as for the
users of the normal parking spaces, the parking fee will remain at ￥RMB 30 of the
maximum charge per day.
The press briefing by Shenzhen Transport Commission (2016) expressed that the
reason of propose the new parking charges policy was hope to improve the using
efficiency of the existing parking spaces in Shenzhen by encouraging the citizens
more parking for short-time. Meanwhile, hoping the new parking charges policy
could attract more citizens to engage in the SPS services.
Figure 8 - Comparison of Parking Charges Policy by the SPS services and
Normal
2.7 The Parking Preferences of Chinese Vehicle Drivers
According to the studies of Mo, Zhang and Yan (2008), Chinese car drivers choose a
parking space based on the following kinds of information about the parking space:
Location
Their studies showed that 78% Chinese drivers considered the location as the key
driving force to select a parking space. In other words, the distance and direction of
parking space is the factor which most Chinese drivers care about when they choose
parking space.
Availability of parking space
Over 47% of Chinese drivers expressed that the availability of parking space was a
main factor to affect them choosing a parking space. Hence, the real-time availability
information of parking space is other important factor which can affect vehicle
drivers selecting a parking space.
Parking Fees
Over 23% of the Chinese drivers expressed that the parking fee was other main
aspect which can affect them selecting a parking space.
2.8 The Influence of the SPS on Urban Traffic Issues
Based on the review of the related literatures above, Shenzhen deploying the SPS in
city centre is attempting to gain the following benefits:
Continuously providing car drivers real-time information and services for
parking
Reducing searching and driving time of drivers for parking
Reduction of traffic congestion
Reduction of traffic air pollution
Reduction of parking management costs, including labour costs
Improving the using efficiency of existing parking spaces
Improving the city image of Shenzhen
According to the released statistics from Shenzhen Road Traffic Management Centre
(2015), in the first four months after implementation of SPS in city centre of
Shenzhen, the average parking turnover rate increased by 48.6%. The average
vehicle speed raised by 8.15%. The carbon emissions of workdays reduced around
4.6%.
The reports from Zhang, Wang, Wu (2015) and Shenzhen Road Traffic Management
Centre (2015) have analysed the following improvements which help the local traffic
to alleviate the traffic pressures. The first significant improvement was the
information sharing. The deploying of the SPS services provides the channel for the
local traffic management department to systematic collect the real-time data from the
parking spaces. And then the local traffic management department can extract the
parking information that drivers needed from those data. Therefore, the drivers
enable to know the real-time information which they need to help their decision
making for parking anywhere and anytime.
Other improvement was that the SPS services helped Shenzhen to achieve the
standardized management of the parking spaces. The parking fee is calculated
automatically by the mobile app based on the inputted parking information, which
avoids a series of problems, such as the arbitrary charges. Meanwhile, the
standardized management of the parking spaces also reduce the operation costs. The
deploying of the SPS services has reduced the demand o f labour to manage the
parking space in Shenzhen.
The changing of parking behaviour was other improvements by the deploying of the
SPS services in Shenzhen. Along with the implementing of new reward parking
charges policy within the SPS services, most users used the services to parking for
short-time, which improved the parking turnover rate and alleviated the traffics
pressures.
2.9 Citizen Engagement
There are many studies and literatures have defined citizen engagement. Bassler,
Brasier, Fogle, and Taverno (2008) have defined citizen engagement as an effective
tool which helps local community to make better decisions. Heeks (2002) also has
defined that citizen engagement can reinforce the relationship between the local
community and citizens to encourage them to do dialogue, which help the local
community to resolve the local problems. A good citizen engagement involves
following elements (Bassler et al., 2008):
Awareness
Good awareness was the increasing knowledge of citizens and encouraging citizens
to apply that knowledge (Bassler et al., 2008). As for the SPS services in Shenzhen,
the local government hope to gain benefits which mentioned above by citizens using
the SPS services. Therefore, the knowledge of citizens about the SPS services is one
of the critical elements to successfully deploy the SPS services in the city. In this
system, the awareness reflects in the using of the SPS services and the changing of
parking behaviour.
Trust
Trust makes the citizens to use knowledge to benefit the local community and
themselves (Bassler et al., 2008). As for the SPS services in Shenzhen, the trust
reflect in the degree of dependency of citizens on the SPS services.
Sustainability
Sustainability ensures that the attractive advantages are regular and on-going for
citizens and local community (Bassler et al., 2008). As for the SPS services in
Shenzhen, the sustainability reflect the consistent benefits for citizens and local
community.
Accessibility
Accessibility ensures the services are usability and availability for citizens from
different backgrounds (Bassler et al., 2008). As for the SPS services in Shenzhen, the
accessibility reflect in the services can be accessed by citizens who have different
backgrounds.
Chapter 3 - Methodology and Implementation
3.1 Introduction
This chapter will describe the research approach, research methods and the strategy
of data collection of this project. Meanwhile, this chapter will explain the methods of
analysing the collected data.
3.2 Research Approach
Sabherwal and King (1991) and Bryman (2012) indicated two research approaches of
using information resources or data to achieve the research purposes, which were
deductive approach and inductive approach.
Deductive approach requires researchers to build hypothesis firstly, then the
researchers use the collected data to check the truth or falsity of the hypothesis. As
for the inductive approach, researchers build findings and recommendations based on
the collected data (Bryman, 2012).
This project is going to investigate and identify the factors which can influence the
citizen engagement of the SPS services. The influencing factors have to be offered
based on the collected data. Therefore, this project will adopt inductive approach as
the research approach.
3.3 Research Methodology
This project is going to adopt mixed methods research. Green, Graham and Garaclli
(1989) gave a definition of mixed methods research which was a systematic
integration of quantitative and qualitative methods in a study for purpose of
complementarity and expansion of a phenomenon. Fidel (2008) indicated that the
mixed methods research can improve the richness and content of a study.
As for this project, the aim is to identify the factors which can influence the citizen
engagement of the SPS services. On one hand, the quantitative methods research can
generate meaningful social trend to identify the ‘factors’ based on a wide sample. On
the other hand, qualitative methods research can provide the in-depth information of
the ‘factors’ to develop explanations and standpoints based on a specific sample
(Kelle, 2006). In discussion of findings, researchers can use the qualitative data to
help understanding and exploring the patterns in the quantitative analysis (Winch et
al., 2016). Therefore, mixed methods research is worth to be adopted in this project
for obtaining deeper understanding and exploring.
3.4 Data Collection
Based on the research methodology of this project, the quantitative and qualitative
data need to be collected. There are two data collection tools which will be adopted
in this project, which are online questionnaire and personal interview.
3.4.1 Questionnaire
An online questionnaire will be designed and adopted in this project for collecting
quantitative data. Wright (2006) indicated that online questionnaire has following
advantages:
Wide Sample
Online questionnaire can enable researchers to gain a broad range of quantitative
data from a wide sample.
Save Time
The internet-based questionnaire is ease of dissemination. It is able to d isseminate
quickly, which enable researchers to facilitate and accelerate their data collection.
Inexpensive
Online questionnaire is a cost- free data collection tool. There are a lot of free open
source online can support to design and disseminate the questionnaire, like
SurveyMonkey, Google Doc and Wenjuan.com. Therefore, the online questionnaire
can reduce the research cost for researchers (Llieva et al., 2001).
In this project, the questionnaire is designed and created by Wenjuan.com, which
contains 14 questions. The questions are designed into two types, closed-ended
questions and open-ended questions. All questions are designed to cover the research
objectives and elements of citizen engagement mentioned in previous chapters. This
questionnaire will be performed and distributed by social media channels, such as
Weibo, WeChat. It enables researcher get a random and wide sample of participants.
The research sample of this questionnaire is the citizens who over 18 years old, and
who have parking needs in Shenzhen.
3.4.2 Interview
The personal interview is other data collection tool which be adopted in this project.
Patton (2002) indicated that the interview have advantages which quantitative
research tools do not have. Firstly, the open-ended questions of interview can obtain
the first-hand and in-depth information behind the paper from a particular sample
group which is more valuable in evaluation. Secondly, the qualitative research of
interview can measure the data quality because interviewer can monitor the
participating attitudes of the interviewees.
In this project, the interview will be designed and performed into two parts. First part
is fixed questions, which attempts to identify and cover the factors which influence
the citizen engagement of the SPS services in Shenzhen. Second part is occasional
questions. In this part, the questions will be proposed to the interviewees based on
the contents of their answer. The interview will go to Shenzhen to invite the users of
the SPS services as participants. Strategically, they will be selected in different
centre districts of Shenzhen.
3.5 Data Analysis
Based on the research methodology of this project, the data analysis will be divided
into two parts in this project after the data collection. First part is descriptive
analysis. The quantitative research data from questionnaire will be analysed in a
descriptive way by charts or figures in order to identify the factors which influence
the citizen engagement level of the SPS services in Shenzhen.
Second part is thematic analysis. The qualitative research data of interviews will be
discussed based on the identified elements of citizen engagements in chapter of
literature review. The discussion will try to figure out the relationship between the
identified factors in descriptive analysis and citizen engagement level of the SPS
services.
Chapter 4 – Consideration and Ethical Issues
4.1 Introduction
This chapter will describe the issues of practicalities and ethical about this project.
4.2 Practicalities
The practicalities of this project will be presented in following aspects.
Cost: This is a low-cost project as mentioned above. All costs are made in the
process of data collection. The researcher will financially support this project, which
includes the travel cost for interviews.
Location: The data collection of this project will be performed in Shenzhen, which
include the distribution of questionnaires, and conducting personal interviews. Other
processes of this project will be done in Sheffield.
Feasibility: This project is an individual research project. There are no cooperative
people and organisations involved in this project. Data collection is the critical part
for this project. The data quality will affect the quality of the final results of this
project. Therefore, gaining a large range of sample in Shenzhen can improve the
quality of this project.
Achievability: This project expects to perform 10 interviews and collect 100
finished online questionnaires. All data expects to be collected within one month.
4.3 Ethical Issues
Ethical issues are always the critical part in research project, which ensure to
protect the rights of participants and researchers (Behi & Nolan, 1995). According
to the research methodology of this project, there are two parts of participants
involved. First part is the SPS users in Shenzhen to be interviewed. Other part is
the Shenzhen’s citizens who are over 18 years old and having parking needs to
finish the questionnaire.
All participants will be told their rights and duty by participant information sheet
and consent form before they engage in this project. The data delivered by
interviews and questionnaires will be stored and anonymised only on the
Information School’s research data drive and personal laptop of the researcher with
random number. All data will be retained without any identifying information.
There are only the researcher, supervisor of this project, the Examination officers
and the ICT staffs who have the permission to access these data. The data only is
used and analysed for this project research. All data will be destroyed after this
project has been completed and marked.
Chapter 5 – Results and Discussion
5.1 Introduction
This chapter is going to analyse and discuss the results delivered by questionnaires
and interviews. The results will be demonstrated and analysed by using the selected
analysis methods. The online questionnaire was distributed on 1st July, 2016, which
receives the sample of 175 participants within one week. The personal interview had
successfully invited 7 participants to answer the related open-ended questions in
July, 2016. Although the quantity of interviews did not meet the expectations, the
interviewees still provided some contents which are worth discussing. Meanwhile,
the quantity of samples delivered by online questionnaires was more than expected,
which can better support researcher to identify the factors of influencing on the
citizen engagement level of the SPS services in Shenzhen. In addition, this chapter
will provide further discussion based on the results findings.
5.2 Descriptive Analysis of Quantitative Research Data
The received data from online questionnaires will be descriptively analysed
according to the questions to identify the characteristics about citizen engagement of
the SPS services in Shenzhen.
According to the responses of 175 participants from online questionnaire, there were
175 respondents who expressed ‘Yes’ to the question of ‘Do you have parking needs
every day in city centre of Shenzhen? ’. Hence, the sample of the 175 participants
gained from online questionnaires is useful sample results. Figure 9 shows the
responds of this question.
5.2.1. Gender
Figure 10 shows the total distribution of participants between male and female
citizens who have parking needs in city centre of Shenzhen every day. The female
respondents accounted for 62% of the total respondents. The percentage of male
respondents was 38%. The results of more female respondents from the online
questionnaire were reasonable. Smith (2008) has indicated that the
overrepresentation of female in online survey population is consistent. Meanwhile,
Smith (2008) suggested that the data gathered from online questionnaire should not
have gender bias. Therefore, in this project, apart from gender analysis, the analysis
of other aspects will not compare the difference of responses between female and
male.
5.2.2. Age
Figure 11 shows the distribution of age ranges of total respondents. According to the
theory by (Erikson & Erikson, 1998) the online questionnaire of this project divided
the age ranges of participants into three parts: the early adulthood (18-39 years old),
the adulthood (40 - 64 years old) and the maturity (65 and above years old). As the
figure 11 shows that the main age ranges of respondents were early adulthood, which
accounted for 63% of total respondents. The adulthood was the second largest age
ranges of respondents, which accounted for 34% of total respondents. The maturity
respondents accounted for 3%. This result shows that the most respondents were
early adulthood.
5.2.3. Annual Income
Figure 12 presents the distribution of annual incomes of total respondents. Barton,
Chen and Jin (2013) defined income standards of Chinese citizens by annual
disposable income. The income of affluent class was over ￥RMB 229,000 per year.
The income of upper middle class was ￥RMB 106,000 to 229,000 per year. The
income of mass middle class was ￥RMB 60,000 to 106,000 per year. The poor class
income was less ￥RMB 60,000 per year.
As you can see from Figure 12, in the responses of the online questionnaire of this
project, mass middle class were the largest group of participants with 48 % of total
respondents. 32% of participants’ annul income were poor class, which was less ￥
RMB 60,000. The participants of upper middle class and affluent class income
accounted for 14% and 6% respectively. Hence, this figure presents that most
participants involved in the online questionnaire were medium and low income
crowd.
5.2.4. Have you ever use mobile app to assist you parking in Shenzhen?
This question was designed to measure the citizen engagement level of SPS services
of Shenzhen. Figure 13 shows the distribution of the answers of respondents about
this question. As the figure shown, there were 133 respondents who expressed had
never used the mobile app to assist their parking in Shenzhen, which accounted for
76% of total respondents. Only 24% respondents, which contain 42 respondents,
expressed that they had used mobile app to help their parking in Shenzhen. The
figure shows a very low citizen engagement level of the SPS in Shenzhen.
5.2.5. Age, Gender and Annual Income of the SPS users
Figure 15 – 17 show the total distribution of age, gender and annual income of the 42
respondents who had used the SPS services to help their parking in Shenzhen. As
the figures demonstrated, the female users accounted for 71% of the total SPS users,
while the male users accounted for 29%. The age ranges of most SPS users still were
early adulthood, which accounted for 52% of total users. The adulthood users had
second largest percentage of total users, which was 43%. The maturity users only had
5% of total users. The annual income level of most SPS users was mass middle class,
which accounted for 50% of total users. 33 % SPS users had income of poor class.
The users who earn upper middle class and affluent class income accounted for 14%
and 3% respectively. Therefore, according to the sample, the most respondents who
had used mobile app to help their parking in Shenzhen were early adulthood female
with medium and low income crowd.
5.2.6. Where do you first time know the SAS services of Shenzhen?
This question was designed to identify the main promotion methods of SPS services
in Shenzhen. Figure 18 shows the distribution of main promotion methods of SPS
services. Most users first knew the SPS services from their friends, which accounted
for 45% of the total users. 38% of the SPS users expressed that they first time knew
the services by the guide in roadside parking spaces. In addition, there were 12% and
5% of the SPS users expressed that they first knew the SPS services by news and
social media channels respectively. Therefore, according to the responses of this
question, the SPS services mainly were promoted by the public praise and service
strategy.
5.2.7. How the frequencies do you use the SPS services?
This question was designed to measure the degree of dependency of users on the SPS
services. Figure 19 shows the distribution of using frequency about SPS services. As
you can see from this figure, totally there were 78% of the SPS users expressed that
they used SPS services once a week or less than once a week, which means that most
users of SPS did not often use this system to assist their parking. There were only
12% of total users expressed that they used the SPS services to assist their parking
every day. Otherwise, 10% of SPS users expressed that they used the SPS services
once every two to four days. Therefore, according to the responses of this question,
the degree of dependency of users on the SPS services was low.
5.2.8. What is the main parking purpose of using the SPS？
This question was designed to measure the effect of the SPS on changing the parking
behaviours and improving parking turnover rate in city centre of Shenzhen. In the
questionnaire, ‘Personal business’ was explained that users were parking there for
temporary business. ‘Work business’ was explained that users were parking there to
work. Figure 20 shows the responses’ distribution of the purposes to parking in city
centre of Shenzhen by the SPS services. As the figure shown, there were 81% of
users who expressed that personal business was the main parking purpose of using
the SPS. Only 19% of users’ parking purpose of using the SPS was for work
business. Therefore, according to the responses of this question, the major parking
purpose of using the SPS in city centre of Shenzhen was temporary personal
business.
5.2.9. How long is duration of parking usually by the SPS?
This question was designed to measure the effect of the SPS on improving parking
turnover rate in city centre of Shenzhen and verify the responses of question 8.
Figure 21 demonstrates the distribution of different parking duration. Based on the
discussion of the reward policy of the SPS services in literature review, the parking
duration was divided into three different lengths, which were fewer 30 minutes, 30 –
90 minutes and more than 90 minutes. As you can see from the figure, 83% of
respondents expressed that their parking duration of using the SPS services usually
were less than 90 minutes. There were only 17% of respondents showed that their
parking duration of using the SPS services usually were more than 90 minutes.
Therefore, according to this sample, most users used the SPS services only for short-
time parking, which was less than 90 minutes.
5.2.10. What advantages do you take from the SPS services?
In this section, the question was designed to identify the attractive attributes within
the SPS services. According to the literatures review, there were five attractive
attributes of SPS services which summarised to be selected as options of answer.
Figure 22 shows the statistics of answers. As shown in the figure, there were 25 and
22 respondents selected the navigation of parking spaces and real-time parking
places availability information as advantages they can take from the SPS services
respectively. The reasonable parking fee was thought other advantage by 17
respondents. The online payment and reminder of parking time left were selected by
12 and 11 respondents respectively as advantages they can take from the SPS
services. The results of this question are consistent with the existing studies. Most
drivers believe that the location, availability information and charge rate of parking
spaces are the most important attributes to assist their parking.
5.2.11. What limits are existing within the SPS services?
This question was designed to identify the weakness within the SPS services in order
to provide the future recommendations. As open-ended question, here summarises
the top three limitations which most mentioned by the SPS users of this question.
Figure 23 shows the statistics of the responses of this question. As shown in the
figure, 31 respondents mentioned that the number of parking space involved in the
SPS services was few. It still was difficult to found an available parking space by the
SPS in daytime. There were 17 respondents who expressed that the participation
ways was limited. People cannot use this system without smart phone. In addition,
there were 12 respondents who expressed that this system is difficult to use.
5.2.12. Age, Gender and Annual Income of SPS non-users
In this section, the distribution of age, gender and annual income of the 133
respondents who had never used the SPS services were analysed and presented. As
the Figure 24 – 26 demonstrated, the male respondents who expressed never using
the SPS services accounted for 41% of the total, while the female accounted for 59%
of the total. The percentage of male respondents who did not use the SPS services
increased by 12.78% compare with the percentage of male respondents who used the
SPS services. This growth shows that more male respondents expressed they do not
use the SPS services.
The age ranges of most respondents who did not use the SPS services still was early
adulthood, which reached to 67%. The adulthood and maturity respondents who did
not use the SPS services accounted for 31% and 2% respectively.
The annual income level of most respondents who did not use the SPS services was
mass middle class, which accounted for 47% of the total. There were 32% of the total
respondents expressed that their annual income level was poor class. The
respondents who did not use the SPS services had upper middle class and affluent
class income accounted for 14% and 7% respectively. Compare with percentages of
the upper middle class and affluent class in the respondents who used the SPS
services, the percentages of that in the respondents who did not use the SPS services
both increased.
Therefore, according to the these results, there were more early adulthood male
respondents who are upper middle class and affluent class expressed that they did not
use the SPS services.
5.2.13. Why do you never use the SPS services?
In this section, the question was designed to identify the factors which can reduce the
citizen engagement level. Figurer 27 demonstrates the statistics of answers about this
question from the respondents. The reason of most respondents who do not use the
SPS services was that they never heard of the SPS services, which had 81
respondents mentioned this reason. There were 47 respondents expressed that the
reason of they do not use the SPS services were the traditional parking method can
meet their daily parking needs. In addition, there were 18 respondents expressed that
the cumbersome procedure was the reason why they do not use the services. And 7
respondents expressed that the reason was they do not use smart phone, hence they
cannot use the services.
5.2.14. Which functions and attributes can attract you to try to use this system?
In this section, the respondents were asked to answer the question to identify the
attractive attributes within the SPS services for the potential users. Figure 28 shows
the statistic of the different responses. As shown in the figure, there were 71 and 75
respondents who respectively selected the real-time parking places availability
information and navigation of parking spaces as attractive functions for them. The
lower parking fee was selected by 52 respondents as attractive attribute for them.
Besides, the online payment was selected by 26 respondents as attractive attribute for
them.
This result is similar with the result of section of 5.2.10, for the most potential users,
the availability information, location and charge rate of parking spaces were the most
important factors to affect their decision.
5.2.15. Do you have any recommendation and expectancy for the SPS services?
This question was designed to collect the recommendation and expectation for the
SPS services. As open-ended question, the respondents answered this question from
different aspects. The top five aspects which most mentioned were summarised and
shown in the Figure 29. As you can see in this figure, there were 42 respondents
mentioned that hope more parking spaces of different areas can get involved in the
SPS services. 27 respondents mentioned that hope to be provided alternative
participation ways of the SPS services apart from the mobile app. 19 participants
expected that the parking charges can be cheaper. In addition, 15 participants
mentioned that they expect the mobile app can have more functions, such as can
exploring the food or drinks near the parking space.
5.3 Thematic Analysis of Qualitative Research Data
This section is going to discuss the qualitative research data by thematic analysis.
The qualitative research data was collected from the 7 interviews. The interviews
were performed in Chinese Language. The analysis will be performed based on the
following identified elements of citizen engagements in literature review.
5.3.1 Trust
The trust level of citizen engagement was reflected in the using frequency of the SPS
services in this research. According to the responses about the using frequency of
citizens on the SPS services from the interviews, most interviewees expressed
‘uncertainty’. The explanations included that the SPS services were not available in
every street, the SPS services were only considered to use when cannot found
available off-street parking spaces, the SPS services was difficult to use and only
used the services when temporary emergency parking. Based on the responses of the
interviews about this question, it showed that the trends of the trust level of the SPS
services were low. Most interviewees seem to consider the SPS services as an
alternate option to assist their parking in Shenzhen. According to the responses and
the review of existing literatures, the following reasons which could results in the
low trust level of the SPS services.
First, it was still difficult to find a parking space by the SPS services. Most
interviewees mentioned that the SPS services did not always can help to find an
available parking space in everywhere in Shenzhen. The existing literatures and
studies also indicated that at present, the existing parking spaces involved in the SPS
services is limited. As the first Chinses city to deploy the SPS services, Shenzhen
deployed the system only in main streets of the centre districts since 2015. There
were only over 34,000 on-street parking spaces involved in the SPS services
(SZRTC, 2016a). The responses of online questionnaires also showed that the limited
number of parking space involved in the SPS services was the biggest problem for
the users. Therefore, the users of the SPS services could feel still difficult to find an
available parking space by the SPS services, especially when the traffic is in rush
time. This condition makes the users do not notice any change of their parking
experiences even though they have engaged in the SPS services.
Second, the SPS services were difficult to use. Some interviewees mentioned that
they only used the SPS services a few times because it was not convenient enough.
They expressed that the traditional parking spaces only need to pay the parking fee
when they left. However, the SPS services require the users to finding the unique ID
of parking space and then have to do more operations by mobile app, such as input
the ID, select the parking time length and finished the payment. Hence they
expressed that the parking operations of SPS services for them were not convenient.
To summarised, based the discussion and analysis above, the trust level of the SPS
services was weak in Shenzhen, which can be considered as one reason to reduce the
citizen engagement level of the SPS services in Shenzhen.
5.3.2 Awareness
In this research, the awareness level of the SPS services was reflected in the
changing of citizens’ parking behaviour. Based on the responses of interviewees, as
for the questions about the parking purposes, all interviewees expressed that they
used the SPS services for personal temporary parking mostly, such as dining,
shopping and recreation. As for the questions about parking time length, the
interviewees expressed that their parking time length by the SPS services normally
was less than 2 hours. These responses seem that the awareness level of the SPS
services was high because the most local drivers now used the SPS services for
short-time parking. However, they explained the reason of temporary parking by the
SPS services was that the parking fee was cheap than the traditional parking spaces
for temporary parking. They cannot really know and understand the benefits
delivered by the SPS services. A lot of interviewees thought that the benefits of SPS
services were to release the parking demand pressure of the traditional parking
spaces. Therefore, the citizens lack of the knowledge about the SPS services which
could be other reason of the low citizen engagement level of the SPS services.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, most interviewees consider the SPS services
as an alternate option to assist their parking in Shenzhen. According to the responses
from the interviews, all interviewees expressed that the SPS services were not the
first option to assist their parking. Most of them preferred parking in the off-street
parking spaces and only considered the SPS services if parking for personal business.
Therefore, the citizens lacked the awareness of apply the knowledge of the SPS
services.
General speaking, based on the discussion above, although the parking behaviour of
local drivers can be changed by the SPS services, the awareness level of the SPS
services was still weak. The local citizens do not really understand the purposes of
deploying the SPS services in city. The local citizen only used the SPS services as an
alternate parking option because the SPS services were cheaper for short-time
parking. Therefore, they cannot realize that their engagements can influence on the
achievement of the SPS services. This could be another reason of the low
engagement level in the SPS services of Shenzhen.
5.3.3 Sustainability
The sustainability level of the SPS services was reflected in the attractive advantages
within the services can be regular and on-going for citizens and local government in
this research. According to the responses about the advantages of the SPS services
from the interviews, the interviewees mainly indicated the advantages of the SPS
services in two aspects, which were cheapness and convenience.
The explanations about cheapness from the interviewees included that the parking
fee by the SPS services was cheaper than normal parking spaces within 1 hour and
the parking fee of the SPS services was cheaper during the non-peak times of traffic.
The explanations about convenience from the interviews included that the users can
make a parking plan in advance, and it was efficient by the real- time parking places
availability information to find available parking spaces nearby the driving
destination.
Although the SPS services provided a series of benefits for the users, some
interviewees still mentioned that in some cases, these benefits did not exist actually.
For example, the SPS services did not yet cover most streets in city centre of
Shenzhen. Hence the interviewees expressed that they cannot use this system to
assist their parking in everywhere of Shenzhen. In addition, due to this system was
operated by mobile internet, some interviewees mentioned that they cannot use the
services to finish the parking when the mobile phone has not service network.
Therefore, the benefits provided by the SPS services were not sustaining for citizens.
Accordingly, the discontinuity of the benefits provided also can reduce the trust level
of the SPS services.
To sum up, according to the discussion in this section, the benefits provided by the
SPS services were not sustaining for citizens. Therefore, the sustainability level of
the SPS services was not always satisfying. This factor also has adverse impact on
the citizen engagement level of the SPS services in Shenzhen.
5.3.4 Accessibility
In this research, the accessibility level of the SPS services was reflected in the
usability and availability of the SPS services for citizens who have different
backgrounds. According to the responses of the interviewees who have different
backgrounds, they provided different comments about the usability and availability
of the SPS services.
The first difference was in the usability of the mobile parking app within the SPS
services. There were interviewees who had limited smart phone skills expressed that
they felt difficult to use this app to finish the payment. However, the interviewees
who have experienced smart phone skills expressed that the SPS was quite
convenient to help their parking.
In addition, the statistical results of the quantitative data showed that the majority
respondents expressed they had never used the SPS services in Shenzhen. The one of
the reasons was some people did not use the smart phone. Meanwhile, according to
the findings of the quantitative data, some types of citizens, such as the affluent class
maturity, they also had low engagement level in the SPS services. Therefore, the
usability of the SPS services was not stable for the users from different backgrounds.
The second difference was in the availability of the mobile parking app within the
SPS services, as mentioned above, many interviewees mentioned that due to the SPS
services were operated by mobile internet, the services sometimes cannot be
accessed when the mobile phone has not service network or has other errors.
Therefore, the availability of the SPS services was not high enough in some cases.
To sum up, the accessibility level of the SPS services was in Shenzhen not high. In
some cases, the users who had limited smart phone skills still cannot engage into the
services. Meanwhile, the services required that the citizens have to own a smart
mobile device which can run the app and connect with the mobile internet.
Therefore, the local government need to consider that provide the SPS services to
cover the citizens who have different backgrounds.
Chapter 6- Conclusions
6.1 Introduction
This chapter will discuss and provide the conclusions of this research based on the
previous chapters. The conclusions will provide a succinct summary of the whole
project and the possible improvements based on the investigation results for the SPS
services. Meanwhile, this chapter will discuss the limitation of this project to support
the future research of the similar topics.
6.2 Conclusions
The main research aim for this project is to identity the main elements that influence
the citizens’ engagement to use SPS services in Shenzhen. In order to achieve this
research aim, this project reviewed the related literatures and collected the necessary
data which this project needed. Based on the analysis and discussion of the obtained
data, there are following conclusions which can be developed and demonstrated.
The current challenges of parking spaces and policy are inefficient in
Shenzhen
The developing of parking spaces now is far behind the increasing of vehicle
ownership in Shenzhen. Meanwhile, the limitations of the parking policy made that
the using efficiency of the existing parking spaces was low, which aggravated the
challenges. Therefore, deploying new technology to alleviate parking difficulty was a
solution for the local government.
The SPS services alleviates the city traffic pressures by changing users’
parking behaviour to improve the using efficiency of the existing parking
spaces
The SPS of Shenzhen provides a series of functions and services for citizens, which
hope can change their parking behaviour to improve the using efficiency of the
existing parking spaces. The local government believes that the SPS services can
alleviate the traffic pressures to some extent if the SPS services can change the
parking behaviour of citizens. Practically, the SPS services do change the parking
behaviour of the users, but it does not really alleviate the traffic pressures in
Shenzhen.
The citizen engagement level of the SPS services in Shenzhen is low
The results of data analysis represent a low citizen engagement level of the SPS
services in Shenzhen. Based on the discussion in chapter 5, the weakness of
awareness, trust, sustainability and accessibility caused the low citizen engagement
level of the SPS services.
The SPS services are not usable and attractive for citizens who have
different backgrounds
As for a public service, the SPS has to be usable and available for every citizen who
has different background. Nevertheless, as the described in chapter 5, the
engagement levels of the SPS services are different for citizens who have different
backgrounds. The SPS services are more attractive for the young adults who are
medium and low income crowd and have experienced smart phone skills. However,
for the citizens who are upper middle class and affluent class or citizens who have
limited smart phone skills, the SPS services seem unattractive for them. This
situation also reflects the weak trust, sustainability and accessibility of the SPS
services.
The SPS services lack the popularization to improve the awareness of the
citizens
The results demonstrate that most citizens the first knew the SPS services are
introduced by the guide in roadside parking spaces or their friends. Obviously, the
local government did not do enough publicity by media to popularize the SPS
services. Therefore, the enhancing of related awareness is slow now in Shenzhen.
The engaged citizens of the SPS services more expect to obtain the
cheapness and convenience from the SPS services
The current users of the SPS services are consistent to express that the cheapness and
convenience are the reasons why they use the services. However, many citizens
mentioned that they were looking forward that the SPS services can provide
alternative and easier participation ways.
6.3 Recommendations
Based on the above research, the following recommendations for attracting more
citizens engaged into the SPS services are proposed.
1. Strength publicity to enhance the awareness of citizen uses the SPS services
by different promotional channels, especially social media.
2. Encouraging more parking spaces to get involved in the SPS services provide
more parking information for citizens to assist their parking.
3. Providing alternative and easier participation ways for citizens who have
different background.
4. Providing award policy for the regular users of the SPS services.
6.4 Limitation and Future research
The critical limitations of this project exist in two aspects. First aspect is time
limitation. The all data collection has to be done before August. It was challenging
to collect sufficient quantity and quality data within one month. There were a lot of
uncertainties during the data collection. For example, in this project, original plan
was to perform 10 interviews in Shenzhen. However, due to the characteristic of
short-time parking of the SPS services, most drivers would not like to spend more
time on attending an interview. Therefore, only 7 interviews were successfully
completed. Therefore, it affected the quality of the data collection.
Second aspect is distribution of the questionnaires. This project decided to
distribute the questionnaires by the social media, which also affected the quality of
the data collection. As the results of quantitative data shown, the number of the
females and young adults were overwhelmingly more than other answers in the
questions about gender and ages. This situation happened probably because of the
characteristic of the participants by social media. Therefore, as for the future
studies, the quantitative data have to be collected by different ways.
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Appendixes
Appendix I: Ethics Application
Appendix II: Ethics Approval Letter
Appendix III: Participant Information Sheet
Appendix IV: Participant Consent Form
Appendix V: Questionnaire
Appendix VII: Access to Dissertation Form
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