Parking search caused congestion: Where's all the fuss?

This paper presents a method for determining parking search behavior using GPS traces. The research takes advantage of a GPS based household travel survey, an extensive dataset of GPS with video, and a commercially purchased set of trip segments. Strategies for data cleaning, matching traces to digitized networks, assessing the probability that a trace is of good quality, and strategies for determining whether or not a trip involves excess travel due to parking search are described. We define and operationalize two definitions of excess search - popularly known as cruising. Our results suggest that cruising in San Francisco, CA and Ann Arbor, Michigan is acute in some locations but overall experienced in less than 5-6% of vehicle trips, and that it accounts for less than 1% of vehicle travel in these cities-considerably less than in previous estimates.