Survival analysis of parking duration in urban commercial areas: A case study in Zhengzhou, China

This paper studies the parking demand characteristics of large commercial areas in the city's central regions. The study uses non-parametric and semi-parametric analysis methods in survival analysis to explore if and how weather conditions, parking tariffs, and temporal factors (weekdays, weekends, and short holidays) impact the parking duration. The parking data of a large commercial supermarket in Zhengzhou was collected over one month. Single-factor analysis based on the Product-Limit (PL) approach suggests that the cumulative survival and relative risk curves of parking duration exhibit slight variations across different temporal categories and weather conditions. Based on Cox semi-parametric multi-factor analysis results, the parking duration is significantly influenced by weekdays (regression coefficient = 0.068, hazard ratio = 1.071, P < 0.001), weekends (regression coefficient = 0.042, hazard ratio = 1.043,P < 0.001), moderate rain (regression coefficient = -0.089, hazard ratio = 0.914, P < 0.001), and heavy rain (regression coefficient = 0.030, hazard ratio = 1.030,P = 0.034 < 0.05). The results have indicated that within the study area, compared to short holidays, the parking duration on weekdays and weekends is shorter, with the probability of vehicles ending their parking increased by 7.1% and 4.3%, respectively. Under different weather conditions, compared to sunny days, parking duration is longer during moderate rain, with the probability of vehicles departing decreased by 8.6%, whereas during heavy rain, parking duration is shorter, with the probability of vehicles departing increased by 3%. Notably, the parking tariffs demonstrated no statistically significant impact. These findings suggest that temporal variations and rainfall patterns should inform dynamic parking management strategies, including weather-responsive pricing adjustments and spatial capacity optimization during peak periods.