{"id":13196,"date":"2021-10-06T09:37:46","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T07:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ptvgroup.com\/?p=13196"},"modified":"2025-06-05T08:34:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T06:34:29","slug":"simulation-road-space-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ptvgroup.com\/en\/modeling-planning\/simulation-road-space-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Simulation: How much road space do cars take?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In many ways, Covid has spurred discussion about how we want to live in the future. Lockdown measures have shown how positively less congestion and noise affect quality of life, and how the cityscape changes with more public space for pedestrians, bicycles, caf\u00e9 terrasses, etc. Experts agree that a citizen-centered focus<\/a> is needed and street space needs to be reallocated<\/a> in our cities. This applies especially to mobility.<\/p>\n

To a large extent, the model of the car-centric city that prevailed for decades is still in effect today. Transportation networks are designed to make it as easy and convenient as possible for car drivers to get from A to B. We are so used to constant car traffic, traffic jams and parked-up streets that we no longer even notice how much road space cars actually take up in our cities.<\/p>\n

The average private car is parked for more than 23 hours a day \u2013 not only in the garage at home, but often at the curbside. When they are moved, private vehicles are occupied by 1.5 people<\/a> on average. When we look at the space required, a car at a standstill takes up 13,5 square meters of space<\/a> per person, compared to only 1,2 square meters per person for a bus at 40 percent occupancy.<\/p>\n

Road space needed <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Such numbers are impressive, but also kind of hard to imagine, right? To visualize how the road space needed differs by mode of transport, we created an animation in PTV Vissim<\/a> and Viswalk.<\/a><\/p>\n

It shows 200 people each pass through a traffic light in different ways, which means<\/p>\n