Coordination of Hospital Parking and Transportation Services: A Simulation-Based Approach

Motivated by hospital parking problems that limit the access of patients and visitors, we study a hospital parking setting comprising an on-site parking lot with an occupancy-based dynamic tariff and a free shuttle service from an off-site free parking lot. We developed a discrete event simulation model to study the system's dynamics and find the preferable coordinated tariff and shuttle schedule that maximize revenue for the contractor operating the hospital's parking services under a predefined service level. We use a case study from Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Our results show that the coordinated solution provides significantly better performance: more than a 30% increase in service level, a 25% (about $5,000) increase in daily revenue, and a 53% decrease in average waiting time for a shuttle.