A Planning Model for Determining Optimal Locations of Parking Guidance Sign Boards Based on Utility Maximization

Parking guidance sign boards provide real-time parking information for en-route drivers. The locations of sign boards affect their guidance effect. Considering the service objective of sign board parking flow on a network, the utility of sign boards may be expressed as the function of the degree of parking facility and the parking flow. The method for determining the utility of sign boards is developed, with the objective of maximization of the utility of sign boards, and a planning model for determining the optimal locations of sign boards is presented and the solution method of the model also presented. An example is included to illustrate the procedure of the proposed model. The model is an efficient method to determine the optimal locations of sign boards, providing a theoretical foundation for the planning of sign board placement.