A Hybrid Modeling Approach For Parking Assignment in Urban Areas

Q1 A hybrid modeling approach for parking assignment in
urban areas
i The corrections made in this section will be reviewed and approved by a journal production editor.
Q2Q3 Hanae Erroussoa,b,c,a,b,c, Jihane El Ouadia,b,c,a,b,c, El Arbi Abdellaoui Alaouic,d,⁎,c,d,⁎ abdellaoui.e@gmail.com
elarbi.abdellaoui@eigsica.ma, Siham Benhadoua,b, Hicham Medromia,b
a
Research Foundation for Development and Innovation in Science and Engineering, Casablanca, Morocco
b
National and high school of electricity and mechanic, HASSAN II University, Casablanca, Morocco
Q4 c
EIGSI, La Rochelle, France
dc
EIGSI, Casablanca, Morocco
d
Faculty of Sciences and Technologies, My Ismail University, Errachidia, Morocco.
Q5 ⁎ Corresponding author at: EIGSI, La Rochelle, France.
Corresponding author at: EIGSI, Casablanca and Faculty of Sciences and Technologies, My Ismail University,
Errachidia, Morocco.
Abstract
Finding a parking space is a daunting task that frustrates drivers, affects the economic efficiency of carriers
and impacts city sustainability. Between meeting the needs of deliverers (location, accessibility, proximity...)
and individuals (price, duration, closeness...), transport and urban traffic planners find themselves in a
conflict of interest. Hence the importance of a tool that manages the entire urban parking system in real time.
This paper presents, in this perspective, a solution that allocates parking spaces to carriers and individuals
under uncertain conditions. Its principle is founded on two allocation levels. The first distributes parking
requests on the city areas by considering three characteristic indicators. The second ranks, for each driver,
the available spaces in the designated area according to their decreasing non-dominated degree. It
additionally includes a conflict management approach for dealing with the assignment of multiple drivers to
the same place. It is deployed and its performance is tested by administering parking in a city with four
urban areas.
Keywords: Urban parking management; Fuzzy logic; Freight transport; Conflict handling
1 Introduction
Freight transport contributes significantly in strengthening the socio-economic dynamism of a city. It not only connects
companies with their suppliers and customers, but also ensures necessary provision for citizens’ lives and sustains
industrial or commercial activities as well as associated jobs. However, it generates many problems and challenges that
amplified with the increasing density of residential and economic activity.
Goods are carried by vehicles of different gauges that share the road network and parking infrastructure with private
vehicles. Consequently, these vehicles reduce road capacity, slow down traffic speeds, lead to longer journey times,
increase street congestion and ultimately induce additional expenditure. They thus bring out environmental nuisances,
such as emissions of air pollutants especially greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur
hexafluoride…), noise, ugly streets, foul odors… which negatively impact on the quality of human life in urban areas.
Traditionally, public authorities have not tackled issues related to the transportation of goods in the city, except through
the regulation on parking, street access, hours of operations, and so on (Crainic et al., 2004). They simply identify
parking spaces dedicated to freight carriers by yellow marking a portion of the road. These fixed logistics facilities on
open terrain, named delivery bays, improve goods transit and their relations between the road network and the
operating site (Boudouin, 2006).
Nonetheless, delivery drivers still point out a lack of parking facilities, inadequate management and non-optimal
allocation of existing ones (difficult access, small size, narrow sidewalk, different road levels, mismatch between
demand and supply). They furthermore underline that delivery bays are mostly illegally occupied by individuals or
other deliverers who do not comply with parking-time limits. That’s why they no longer hesitate to double park in order
to shorten delivery times and meet deadlines.
Cities are experiencing a significant number of freight deliveries that continue to grow at a rapid pace. This growth
implies a commensurate increase in the number of delivery areas, which involves a reduction in public space and
private car parking. It therefore prompts an unbalanced sharing of these resources in favor of transport operators. To
restore this balance, we propose an urban parking management approach that helps both carriers and individuals to
easily find a parking space near their destination.
Several proposals address urban parking problems by concentrating either on parking for individuals or for transporters
without combining these two issues despite being closely related. These solutions differ considerably in their
architecture (with or without physical infrastructure, nature of components, technologies deployed, etc.) and
functionality. In most instances, they simply collect data on parking space availability from sensor networks (ultrasonic,
magnetic, thermal or acoustic sensors …) (Tang et al., 2006; Cheung et al., 1917; Alkheder et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2008)
or driver networks (Bechini et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2012; Villalobos et al., 2015), and disseminate it via information
technology applications. Their implementation implies high investment and maintenance costs or strong involvement of
drivers. They only display parking availability maps or tables in an urban area at a given time, which creates
competition between drivers for a parking spot. Resulting in many drivers forced to look for another parking space,
wasting more time, consuming more fuel and losing good mood, hence the importance of an assignment approach.
Our proposed assignment approach allocates parking spaces to both carriers and individuals. It aims to adjust the
parking offer if necessary and is structured in two levels. The first level is a sizing problem. The delivery activity is
highly concentrated in the day. It starts around 06:00 am and ends around 11:30 am. It is therefore necessary to provide
professionals with a sufficient number of well-positioned delivery areas to support their activity and avoid double
parking. The second level is a management problem to adapt the supply of parking to the needs of the city. Beyond
01:00 pm, logistic activity decreases and the number of delivery areas can be reduced which implies a change of status
for these infrastructures.
Our main contribution is to develop an integrative approach that addresses the parking problem of all road users,
professionals and individuals. With such a solution, the notion of a delivery area will automatically be surpassed as any
available and suitable parking space can accommodate a carrier. All parking spaces will be able to switch their status
(delivery area vs. parking space) in real time and autonomously. In other words, a parking space can receive a freight
vehicle or a private one according to the demand during the time period concerned. Rather than focusing on a single
urban area like most research, the proposed method processes parking requests from all areas of a city. Moreover, it
redistributes them to balance the occupancy-load of the different regions. Conventional approaches deal with parking
space allocation while assuming that the problem parameters are fixed and known in advance. In contrast, the
suggested approach effectively handles inaccurate and vague nature of language evaluation through fuzzy theory.
The rest of the paper is organized into five sections. Section 2 presents a literature review outlining our proposal’s
contributions. Section 3 briefly summarizes basic concepts of fuzzy logic. Section 4 illustrates the architecture of the
proposed approach and describes the principle of each phase. Section 5 reports the results of applying the proposed
approach to a decision problem. Section 6 sets out conclusions and further developments.
2 Related works
From our vision, the selection of appropriate car parks, for both carriers and individuals, can be classified as a
combination of parking space assignment problem, delivery bay allocation problem, logistics centers location problem
and loading/unloading areas localization. It could be influenced by multiple factors, e.g.. the walking distance to
destination, driving and waiting time, parking prices, availability, and accessibility (Badii et al., 2018).
Numerous papers address carriers’ parking problems by proposing tools to dimension delivery area layouts. The
authors of Pinto et al. (2016) optimized, by a mixed analytic-Monte Carlo simulation approach, the distribution of
delivery areas depending on the demand and location of the business activities. They identified the best locations of lay-
by areas by applying a discrete covering model. They defined the most suitable size (i.e.. number of parking stalls) of
each activated lay-by area to reach a compromise between space occupation and parking availability. In Tamayo et al.
(2017), a framework for delivery spaces location and evaluation is suggested. It consists in gathering real and up-to-
date information about cartography, delivery parking demand and existing delivery spaces. It quantifies the generated
flow of loadings and deliveries for each business with a statistic-based estimation or with a local survey. It determines
the location of new delivery spaces based on an optimization model that considers real distances, influence radius and
physical constraint.
Other authors dealt with this issue through approaches to organizing delivery areas. Roca-Riu et al. (2015) allocated
parking spaces to freight carriers by several alternative models designed as mixed integer problems and distinguishable
by their objective function (satisfaction of all carriers’ time window requests, earliness/tardiness minimization,
minimization of number of requests scheduled outside the time window…). They quantified the degree of non-
accomplishment of requests with different criteria. A model for dynamic assignment of loading bays is suggested in
Letnik et al. (2018). It provides the optimal number and locations of delivery areas by employing fuzzy k-means
clustering of receivers in combination with a routing algorithm. It manages these logistics infrastructures in two
different ways, a carrier is assigned only to the delivery area closest to its destination or to the second-best possible
place if the first one is occupied.
Some works are interested in more global tools for sizing, localization and management of delivery areas. A
methodology split into a quantification phase and a location-allocation process is described in Muñuzuri et al. (2017). It
estimates the needed number of loading zones on a given street as a ratio between the average daily carrier parking
demand and the capacity of each loading zone. It solves a specific location-allocation problem that considers the
delivery characteristics of the retailers involved. In Comi et al. (2018), the authors developed a solution to model
temporal transportation demand, simulate delivery area schemes depending on the features of commercial operations,
evaluate these scenarios by means of some performance indicators and adopt the most optimal one. They also proposed
an advanced trip planner that assists transport and logistic operators in managing their deliveries, during pre-tour and
on-route phases.
Several scientific contributions elaborate optimization models for distributing parking spaces to individuals. Abidi et al.
(2015) mathematically formulated the parking slot assignment problem for groups with time restriction. They sought to
minimize the sum of the walking distances and the fees that the vehicles have to pay. They developed, to solve this
combinatorial optimization problem, a hybrid genetic assignment search procedure by combination of a genetic
algorithm and a greedy randomized adaptive search procedure. The problem of dynamic assignment for parking slots is
approached in Ratli et al. (2019). The goals are to provide a global satisfaction to all customers and to maximize the
parking lots occupancy. A penalty term is introduced in the objective function in order to make parking spaces with low
future demand more attractive. Its values are calibrated through a learning process using the estimation of distribution
algorithm. The authors of Geng et al. (2011) put forward a smart parking system founded on a dynamic resource
allocation approach. It solves a mixed integer linear program problem at every decision point such that each solution
constitutes an optimal allocation. It assigns and reserves for a driver a space that best meets his preferences in terms of
proximity to destination and parking cost, while ensuring the efficient utilization of overall parking capacity. The
solution described in Venkataramanan and Bornstein (1991) is a network-based decision support system for assigning
parking spaces. This integrated optimization system generates the model as a pure network problem, which minimizes
the weighted sum of priority, cost and distance to go. It optimizes the resulting program with a primal simplex network
optimizer and produces a report for each car park.
However, few papers propose algorithmic architectures instead of mathematical models to manage household parking.
Hakeem et al. (2016) presented a cost-effective and adaptive parking system, a system for assigning free curbside
parking spaces to drivers. It uses a parking assignment algorithm, FPA, that minimizes the total travel time among all
drivers and incorporates the effect of unsubscribed drivers competing with subscribed ones for parking spaces. This
algorithm draws on a modified version of the compound laxity algorithm to determine how long a request can be
delayed before it must be assigned. To increase the processing speed of new parking requests, they provide, in Hakeem
et al. (2017), a distributed version of their centralized parking assignment algorithm. They structured the parked drivers
in a K-D tree where a node can play two roles either parking manager or region manager. Each car park manager
regularly executes the FPA algorithm to satisfy the pending requests transmitted to it. The authors in Mejri et al. (2013)
suggested an efficient semi-centralized parking slot assignment system where each parking lot, in a given urban zone, is
monitored by a parking coordinator. They distinguished two variants: with or without complete knowledge of
neighboring authorities’ decisions. They used the mathematical programming solver for linear programming CPLEX to
allocate spaces while optimizing each coordinator’s social welfare.
Logistics platforms location is an issue overly covered and widely documented in the literature. In Guyon et al. (2012),
an integer linear programming model is proposed to optimize sustainably the location and sizing of logistics facilities in
urban zones. This model, to be properly used by local authorities of large cities, is integrated in an optimization tool that
enables to edit data, to find a feasible solution and to visualize it. Fei et al. (2007) studied a strategy of locating
distribution centers with maximum utility and minimum sum of inbound transport cost, outbound transport cost,
management cost and fixed investment cost. They resolved this discrete model with a genetic algorithm adapted to the
field constraints. A possible organizational and technological framework for the integrated management of urban freight
transportation is introduced in Crainic et al. (2004). It consists of mini platforms whose main role is to collect goods
from various points outside the city and consolidate them in ecological vehicles suitable for usage in dense urban areas.
It is designed as a location-allocation model in a multi-echelon distribution setting that is solved by the branch-and-
bound procedure of CPLEX. The authors in Costa et al. (2013) presented a methodology to locate logistics platforms
with the help of geographic information systems. It is composed of five phases, where the two firsts determine the ideal
locations to implement the logistics platforms. The next two phases check whether or not inadequate transport flows
exist and adjust, if necessary, the mathematical model defining the candidate locations and the one assaying the
transportation cost. The last phase reports all facilities located, the transportation modes utilized, the transportation
routes and the costs involved.
In most previous research works, the problems of locating logistics platforms or allocating parking spaces are studied
by formulating mathematical models, thus assuming that the parameters of the programs developed were fixed numbers
known in advance. However, these parameters, particularly the qualitative ones, are often imprecisely and accurately
defined. To deal with such issues, numerous authors resort to fuzzy theory.
The authors in Bouhana et al. (2013) suggested a multi-criteria decision-making approach to address the urban
distribution center location/allocation problem under uncertain environment. It defines a set of qualitative and
quantitative location criteria and selects the best locations on using the fuzzy theory and the pair-wise fuzzy preference
relation approach. In Chen (2001), a new fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making method is proposed to choose the best
sites for setting up urban distribution centers. A fuzzy preference relation matrix is built to reflect the degree of
preference of one plant location relative to another. And then, a stepwise ranking procedure is employed to rank all
candidate locations. Hashim et al. (2014) mainly examined a multi-objectives programming model with fuzzy
coefficients for locating logistics distribution centers. Uncertain parameters (transportation cost, setup cost and demand)
are supposed to be fuzzy variables and characterized by triangular fuzzy numbers. Fuzzy expected values are calculated
by means of a new fuzzy measure with an optimistic-pessimistic fit index to transform the uncertain model into a
deterministic one. In Lee and Lin (2008), a fuzzy quantitative SWOT method is presented to assess the adequacy and
preferability of locations as transshipment type’s international distribution centers. It integrates multiple criteria decision-
making concept and fuzzy analytic hierarchy method. It includes 10 steps starting with the selection of alternatives,
continuing with the standardization of performance values for various criteria and concluding with the display of all
candidate locations on the 4-quadrant coordinate in the SWOT matrix. The authors in Chu (2002) selected strategic
locations for logistics facilities by a fuzzy TOPSIS model under group decisions. They evolved the membership
function of two positive trapezoidal fuzzy numbers by applying interval arithmetic and -cuts of fuzzy numbers. They
performed the ranking method of the averaged integral values to aid in inferring the ideal and negative-ideal fuzzy
solutions.
The methodologies aforementioned are either predominantly concerned with optimizing delivery bay layouts, allocating
parking spaces to private vehicles or assigning delivery bays to carriers. Hence, the suggested approach explores this
research opportunity and tackles all three issues simultaneously. To highlight the concrete advances brought by our
proposal, it is compared with related works on several criteria (Table 1):
• Optimization of delivery area number (D_N) locations (D_L) and sizes (D_S);
• Parking space allocation to individuals (P_I) and carriers (P_C);
• Spatial (O_S) and temporal (O_T) simulation of obstructions derived from carriers’ double parking;
• Consideration of unclear qualitative parameters (C_L);
• Exploitation of real-time information related to parking space availability (R_P);
• Centralized (C_M) or distributed (D_M) nature of the model;
• Utilization of empirical data (E_U) or simulation of driver parking operations (P_S).
Table 1
i The table layout displayed in this section is not how it will appear in the ﬁnal version. The representation below is solely
purposed for providing corrections to the table. To preview the actual presentation of the table, please view the Proof.
System comparison.
Reference D_N D_L D_S P_I P_C O_S O_T C_L R_P C_M D_M E_U P_S
Pinto et al., 2016 – – – – – – – – –
Tamayo et al., 2017 – – – – – – – – – –
Roca-Riu et al., 2015 – – – – – – – – – –
Letnik et al., 2018 – – – – – – –
Mu ñuzuri et al., 2017 – – – – – – – – –
Comi et al., 2018 – – – – – – –
Abidi et al., 2015 – – – – – – – – – –
Ratli et al., 2019 – – – – – – – – –
Geng et al., 2011 – – – – – – – – –
Venkataramanan and Bornstein,

– – – – – – – – – –
1991
Hakeem et al., 2016 – – – – – – – – –
Hakeem et al., 2017 – – – – – – – – –
Mejri et al., 2013 – – – – – – – – –
Delaitre, 2009 – – – – – – – – –
Our proposal – – – –
Our methodological framework integrates real-time information on parking space availability acquired from telematic
devices and the parking occupancy prediction mechanism developed and tested in Errousso et al. (2020). It cascades
from macro level of cities by allocating drivers’ requests to areas that can accommodate them to micro level of city
zones by assigning parking lots to drivers. It relies on a hybrid approach that combines fuzzy logic and mathematical
optimization.
3 Preliminary about fuzzy logic

Fuzzy logic studies reasoning systems in which the notions of truth and falsehood are considered in a graded fashion, in
contrast with classical mathematics where only absolutely true statements are considered (Spada, 2009). It is the theory
of fuzzy sets, sets that are defined over some universe of discourse.
In recent years, fuzzy set theory has been used for handling fuzzy decision-making problems. Broadly speaking, fuzzy
sets are the mathematical models for extensions of vague notions (Gottwald, 1979). If X is a collection of objects
denoted generically by x, then a fuzzy set in X is a set of ordered pairs (Zimmermann, 2010).
(1)
is called the membership function (generalized characteristic function) which maps each element x in X to a real
number in the interval [0,1]. The closer the value of is to unity, the greater the membership of X to .
Previous Version
(2)
Updated Version
where are real numbers and . This triplet define a triangular fuzzy number. The maximum
value of is equal to 1 and obtained for an X value of . The minimum value of corresponds to 0 and
achieved for a value of X of or .
Linguistic variables are variables whose values are represented in words or sentences in natural or artificial languages (
Chu, 2002). They are characterized by a quintuple (Zimmermann, 2010), in which x is the name of the
variable, T denotes the term set of x, that is, the set of names of linguistic values of x. Each of these values is a fuzzy
variable, denoted generically by X and ranging over a universe of discourse U, which is associated with the base
variable u. G is a syntactic rule (which usually has the form of a grammar) for generating the name, X, of values of x.
is a fuzzy subset of U.
In this paper, we adopt a scale from 0 to 10 to evaluate criteria and alternatives. Table 2 presents linguistic values and
their corresponding fuzzy numbers attributed for each alternative and Table 3 shows linguistic variables and their
respective fuzzy ratings for each criterion.
Table 2
Linguistic terms for objective ratings.

Linguistic term Membership function
Very poor (VP)
Poor (P)
Medium poor (MP)
Fair (F)
Medium good (MG)
Good (G)
Very good (VG)
Table 3
Linguistic terms for criteria ratings.
Linguistic term Membership function
Very low (VL)
Low (L)
Medium low (ML)
Medium (M)
Medium high (MH)
High (H)
Very high (VH)
4 Proposed approach principle

The proposed parking space allocation approach is based on fuzzy logic. It is complemented by a strategy to manage
conflicts arising from the assignment of drivers to the same space. It helps both carriers and individuals to find a free
parking space close to their destination. It thus considers that individuals transport a zero quantity of goods. Our
solution’s methodological framework (Fig. 1) consists of three major phases (Macro-assignment, Micro-assignment and
Conflict handling), each of which includes several steps.
4.1 Phase 1: macro-assignment
The goal of this first phase is to equitably spread parking demands across all zones while considering their capacity and
also ensuring that all parking demands are met. Its main concern is to avoid a parking request being accepted by several
zones while other vehicles do not receive any response to their demand.
In our proposal, a parking space is characterized by an identifier, its coordinates and its status (occupied or unoccupied).
Similarly, a parking request is typified by an identifier, the coordinates of its destination, its delivery time slot, its radius
of influence, its coverage ratio, the mass to be transported, the time-sensitivity of goods, a ranking of available spaces
according to their degree of non-nomination and the spot to which it will be assigned. In turn, an area is modelized by
an identifier, its solicitation rate, the number of available spaces, their characteristics, the number of assigned parking
requests and their properties. These data are represented using the composite data type variables with several objects
(structure).
For each time slot (i.e. every 15 min), parking requests are collected, areas with available parking spaces are selected
and free space coordinates are identified. Considering the walking distance between the parking space and the driver’s
final destination, a correspondence matrix is established with Z (number of zones) columns and V (total
number of requests) rows. It stipulates the relevant parking requests for each zone.
(3)
if and only if the distance between the final destination of a carrier i and a parking place in zone j is is less than
the driver’s radius of influence . It means that driver i can be greeted by zone j.
To calculate the distance between a driver’s destination and a parking space, we apply Euclidean distance which
depends on the coordinates of these two points.
On the basis of this matrix, two indicators are calculated, namely the solicitation ratio and the coverage rate. The first
corresponds to the number of requests that can be accommodated by a zone j. The second represents the number of
zones that can receive a driver i (Fig. 1).
(4)
(5)
Fig. 1
Parking space allocation architecture.
Taking into account these two metrics and the number of available spaces in each zone, parking demands are assigned
to the most appropriate areas of the city. They are allocated, in priority, to the least solicited areas. Similarly, the least
covered requests are prioritized and affected first (Algorithm 1).
To that end, the Macro-assignment algorithm arranges the urban areas’ solicitation rate in ascending order to begin
searching for assignment opportunities in less attractive zones. After classifying parking requests, it affects, firstly, all
demands with a coverage rate equal to 1, then those with a ratio strictly greater than 1. Unassigned drivers, either
because they have a zero-coverage indicator or because there are no more places in their destination area, can either
report their arrival at the next time slot (i.e. delay them by 15 min) if they have some flexibility, or extend their radius of
influence . If the second option is chosen, all parking requests for this decision point are reassigned by re-running the
algorithm.
Algorithm 1 Macro-assignment
Input:
• Let be a parking request

• Let be an available parking space within zone
• Let be the number of available parking spaces in zone
1: Calculate correspondence matrix
2: Compute coverage rate for each request
3: Calculate solicitation rate of each urban area
4: Rank areas of a city in ascending order of their solicitation rate
5: Update ▷ to be a sorting of urban zones
Output: parking requests assigned to zone
6: for each zone do
7: ▷ Initialize the number of parking requests assigned to zone
8: end for
9: Rank parking requests in increasing order of their coverage rate
10: Update ▷ to be a sorting of parking requests
11: for each request do
12: if ( ) then
13: for each zone do ▷ Affect parking requests with a coverage rate equal to or greater than 1
14: if ( and ) then
15: Assign parking demand to zone
16: Update
17:
18: Break
19: end if
20: end for
21: end if
22: end for
24: if ( or ) then
25: for each zone do
26: Write “Would you like to delay your arrival for 15 min ”
27: Read
28: if then
29: ▷ Report the arrival of driver to the next time slot
30: else
31: Write “Please extend your maximum walking distance”
32: Read
33: end if
34: end for
35: end if
36: end for
4.2 Phase 2: micro-assignment
Once completed, the second phase involves attributing a specific parking space to each driver. It processes the parking
requests targeting different zones in parallel to ensure speedy calculation. It considers multiple criteria (Table 4) that
represent qualitative and quantitative parameters against which alternatives are compared and judged.
Table 4
Criteria for parking assignment.
Criteria Type Definition
Walking distance Quantitative Walking distance from the parking space to the delivery point
Driving distance Quantitative Driving distance between the supply point and the parking space
Survival probability Qualitative Likelihood that the parking space will remain free until the driver arrives
Parking rate Qualitative Unit rate for parking during the delivery slot
Accessibility Qualitative Easy access to the parking space by different types of vehicles
Parking space convenience Convenience between the size of the parking space and that of the vehicle to be
Qualitative
accommodated
Infrastructure adaptability Absence of obstacles (street furniture, road level differences, sidewalk widths) on
Qualitative
the carrier’s path to the delivery point
Ability to help drivers meet their obligations on time, taking into consideration
Quality of service Qualitative
traffic conditions and area’s frequentation rate
Security Qualitative Parking space security against accidents, theft and violence
Compliance with sustainable Capacity to comply with sustainable freight constraints mandated by public
Qualitative
freight regulations authorities (limited delivery hours, used vehicle size, specific delivery area …)
Space usage rate Qualitative Balanced allocation of parking demands among the different resources
It relies on a fuzzy decision-making based approach containing several steps. It starts with scoring criteria and
alternatives and ends by ranking available parking spaces according to their appropriateness.
4.2.1 Evaluating the importance of criteria and relevance of alternatives

Assuming that a committee of l decision-makers is responsible for assessing n parking spaces
under each of m attributes . is the weight of criterion j assigned by the
decision maker k. is the rating of a decision maker k for alternative i against criteria j.
4.2.2 Aggregating fuzzy ratings for alternatives and criteria
The aggregated criteria weights and rating of alternatives with respect to each criterion
are defined as follows.
(6)
(7)
4.2.3 Calculating the fuzzy decision matrix and normalizing it
The objective attributes are measured in different units and must be transformed into dimensionless indices to ensure
compatibility with the linguistic ratings of the subjective attributes (Chu, 2002). To this end, the linear scale
transformation is employed and, therefore, the normalized fuzzy decision matrix is obtained .
(8)
(9)
4.2.4 Computing the final fuzzy evaluation value
The final fuzzy evaluation value of alternative is computed as the sum of their normalized fuzzy ratings weighted
by the importance of each criterion.
(10)
4.2.5 Comparing two fuzzy final evaluation values
To decide on the preferability of the alternative over the alternative , we compare the membership function of
with zero. The triangular fuzzy number is the subtraction between the two fuzzy numbers and . The alternative
is certainly preferable to the alternative if and only if is strictly positive.
(11)
4.2.6 Establishing the fuzzy preference relation matrix

If it is unclear whether is positive or negative, we define the degree of preference of alternative over
alternative by a formula based on the membership function of . Subsequently, we construct the fuzzy
preference relation matrix .
(12)
with
If , then alternative is preferable to alternative . Moreover, means that alternative is preferential to

alternative . If , we cannot discriminate between the two alternatives.
4.2.7 Constructing the fuzzy strict preference relation matrix
To overcome this flaw, we calculate the degree of strict dominance of alternative over alternative according to
the degree of preference . The fuzzy strict preference relation matrix is provided by .
(13)
4.2.8 Calculating the degree of non-nomination
The non-dominated degree of each alternative is given by a function of the degree of strict dominance as
shown in the following equation.
(14)
4.2.9 Ranking alternatives regarding their suitability
Among all possible parking spaces, we select the one with the highest non-dominated degree and remove it from the set
of alternatives. We delete, consequently, the row and the column corresponding to this alternative in the fuzzy strict
preference relation matrix. Then, we recalculate the non-dominated degree for the rest of the alternatives and repeat the
last two instructions until the dimension of this matrix is one.
The micro-assignment phase with its different steps described above are synthesized in Algorithm 2.
Algorithm 2 Micro-assignment
Input:
• Let be a parking request assigned to zone

• Let be an available parking space within zone
• Let be the number of available parking spaces in zone
1: Evaluate the importance of criterion as decision-maker
2: Aggregate the fuzzy weight of criterion
Output: ranking for driver of available spaces in descending order of their degree of non-nomination
3: for each zone do
5: Score alternative against criteria as decision maker
6: Aggregate the fuzzy rating of alternative with respect to criterion
7: for each criterion do
8: Determine the maximum of the largest possible value of fuzzy ratings of alternatives
9: for each available parking space do
10: ▷ Normalize the fuzzy rating of alternative
11: end for
12: end for
14: ▷ Initialize the fuzzy evaluation value of alternative
15: for each criterion do
16:
17: end for
18: end for
21: ▷
22: end for
23: end for
26: if then
27: ▷ Degree of preference between and
28: else if then
29:
30: else if then
31:
32:
33: else
34:
35:
36:
37: end if
38: end for
39: end for
42: if then
43: ▷ Degree of strict preference between and
44: else
45:
46: end if
47: end for
48: end for
49:
50:
51: while do
53: Determine the highest degree of strict dominance
54:
55: end for
56: Select the alternative with the highest non-dominated degree
57: Insert the alternative to position in the ranking for driver of available spaces
58:
59: Delete the corresponding row and column of from the fuzzy strict preference relation matrix
60:
61: end while
62: end for
63: end for
4.3 Phase 3: conflict handling
To avoid several drivers being assigned to the same space in an area, the quantities of goods to be transported are
classed according to their heaviness and the parking spaces according to their degree of non-domination. Moreover, the
specific characteristics of goods are taken into consideration. The freight is classified under three modalities
representing its time-sensitivity: non-sensitive (2), sensitive (1), very sensitive (0). Drivers are affected by decreasing
time-sensitivity of the goods they carry. For each freight category, the driver carrying the heaviest quantity has priority
to be assigned to the best parking spot, the carrier delivering the second largest quantity is assigned to the second-best
spot, and so on. If two drivers convey the same quantity or they are private cars, the one having the smallest radius of
influence is assigned first.
For this purpose, parking spaces are first sought for deliverymen carrying first the most time-sensitive and then the
heaviest goods. Each parking request is characterized by a rank of available spaces, from the most suitable to the least
suitable, in the area to which it is assigned. For each parking request, a check is performed to verify if its parking space
classed first is available, if so, it will be assigned to this place. If not, the available spaces are searched until the first best
available space (according to the previously established rating) is found. This is the job of Algorithm 3 summarized in
as follows.
Algorithm 3 Conflict handling
Input:
• Let be a parking request for zone

• Let be parking requests of time-sensitivity in zone
• Let be a ranking for driver of available spaces in descending order of their degree of non-
nomination
Output: assigned parking space to driver
1: for each zone do
2: Cluster parking requests by time-sensitivity type
3: Update ▷ to be a classification of requests following the three modalities
4: end for
5: for each zone do
6: for each time-sensitivity type do
7: Reorder parking requests in descending order according to the amount of goods to be transported
8: if and carrying the same quantity then
9: Rank the driver with the smallest radius of influence first
10: end if
11: Update ▷ to be a sorting of parking requests
12: end for
13: end for
14: for each zone do
16: ▷ Initialize the status of with available
17: end for
18: for each time-sensitivity type do
20: for each place do
21: if is not yet assigned to a driver then
22: ▷ Assign space to driver

23: ▷ Change the status of to occupied
24: Break
25: end if
26: end for
27: end for
28: end for
29: end for
5 Simulation results
We simulate the assignment of 38 parking requests from 38 different carriers delivering 4 zones in the same time slot.
At the time of their arrival, there will be 5 available parking spaces in zone 1, 17 spaces in zone 2, 10 spaces in zone 3
and 13 spaces in zone 4. Coordinates of parking spaces (Table 5) and store locations (Table 6) are obtained from
OpenStreetMap and Google Maps (Google Places API).
Table 5
Parking supply.
Zone Place X Y
1 1 33.5804733 −7.6344472
… … …
5 33.5787562 −7.6341231
2 1 33.5876577 −7.6341124
2 33.5883381 −7.637158
… … …
16 33.5832514 −7.6346329
17 33.5830743 −7.6348695
3 1 33.572046 −7.6303607
2 33.5725151 −7.6313245
… … …
10 33.5721193 −7.6312312
4 1 33.5903378 −7.6285974
… … …
12 33.5902204 −7.6334884
13 33.5901671 −7.6336776
Table 6
Parking demand.
Request X Y R Quantity
1 33.5860906 −7.6359154 25 m 280 kg
2 33.5871949 −7.6381138 30 m 135 kg
3 33.5860382 −7.6351362 20 m 440 kg
… … … … …
18 33.5750402 −7.6354132 25 m 72 kg
19 33.5721729 −7.6332434 30 m 0 kg
20 33.5737448 −7.6351676 20 m 300 kg
… … … … …
35 33.5921199 −7.6305038 20 m 230 kg
36 33.591267 −7.6287605 20 m 180 kg
37 33.5929312 −7.6286261 25 m 100 kg
38 33.5927511 −7.627597 20 m 190 kg
5.1 Phase 1: macro-assignment
The first stage algorithm starts by calculating the distance (in meters) between each parking space in an urban area and
each driver’s destination (Table 7).
Table 7
Distance between each parking space and each delivery destination.
1 2 3 4
1 … 5 1 … 17 1 … 10 1 … 13
1 58.060 … 75.502 23.888 … 31.924 151.031 … 147.356 84.612 … 46.503
2 76.566 … 93.347 40.280 … 52.445 170.176 … 165.723 100.219 … 53.3983
3 56.073 … 73.521 19.159 … 29.758 147.846 … 144.563 78.257 … 43.7896
4 52.089 … 69.457 29.577 … 26.353 145.430 … 141.558 89.293 … 53.0248
5 51.113 … 68.433 31.253 … 25.621 144.568 … 140.618 90.866 … 54.6859
6 50.433 … 67.898 24.474 … 24.087 142.588 … 139.175 82.019 … 49.4353
… … … … … … … … … … … … …
22 76.511 … 59.170 146.272 … 102.685 21.649 … 14.313 175.625 … 170.761
23 84.443 … 67.819 151.288 … 109.862 9.306 … 9.963 175.287 … 175.007

24 86.638 … 70.206 152.779 … 111.849 8.154 … 11.804 175.617 … 176.313
25 97.327 … 81.372 161.496 … 121.969 11.737 … 20.282 180.775 … 184.460
… … … … … … … … … … … … …
35 122.960 … 138.451 57.387 … 100.440 200.744 … 200.138 26.096 … 37.264
36 122.001 … 136.116 64.552 … 102.196 192.875 … 193.064 9.434 … 50.386
37 137.508 … 152.035 76.098 … 116.678 209.571 … 209.743 25.935 … 57.582
38 140.595 … 154.417 82.700 … 121.049 208.887 … 209.494 26.124 … 66.068
Taking into account the walking distance between the parking space and the driver’s final destination, the following
mapping matrix (Table 8) is established. The distance between parking space 1 in zone 2 and the destination of driver 3
(19,1597 m) is less than its radius of influence (20 m), therefore the corresponding coefficient is equal to 1. The
distance between parking space 13 in zone 4 and the destination of driver 35 (37.2645 m) is greater than its radius of
influence (20 m), therefore the corresponding coefficient is equal to 0.
Table 8
Correspondence matrix.
1 2 3 4
1 … 5 1 … 17 1 … 10 1 … 13
1 0 … 0 1 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0
2 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0
3 0 … 0 1 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0
4 0 … 0 1 … 1 0 … 0 0 … 0
5 0 … 0 0 … 1 0 … 0 0 … 0
6 0 … 0 1 … 1 0 … 0 0 … 0
… … … … … … … … … … … … …
22 0 … 0 0 … 0 1 … 1 0 … 0
23 0 … 0 0 … 0 1 … 1 0 … 0
24 0 … 0 0 … 0 1 … 1 0 … 0
25 0 … 0 0 … 0 1 … 1 0 … 0
… … … … … … … … … … … … …
35 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0
36 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0 1 … 0
37 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0
38 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0 0 … 0
Based on this matrix, the solicitation rate (Table 9) is calculated as the number of requests that can be accommodated by
an area and the coverage rate (Table 10) is computed as the number of areas that can accommodate a driver.
Table 9
Solicitation rate for each zone.
Zone 1 2 3 4
Solicitation rate 24 88 81 53
Table 10
Coverage rate of each request.
Request 1 2 3 … 7 8 9 … 14 15 16 … 36 37 38
Coverage rate 3 3 3 … 2 11 9 … 1 4 8 … 8 6 4
Considering these two metrics and the number of available spaces in each zone, parking demands are assigned to the
most appropriate areas of the city (Table 11). Demands 14 and 21 are assigned first since they have a coverage rate
equal to 1. Zone 1 is the first reception possibility that the algorithm checks because of its minimum solicitation rate.
Requests 29 and 30 are not affected because zone 3 (their corresponding zone) is completely occupied.
Table 11
Parking requests assigned to each zone.
Zone Number of available places Parking requests
1 5 18 15 17 16 9
2 17 14 7 1 2 3 10 13 5 11 6 8 4 12
3 10 21 20 19 25 26 22 23 24 27 28
4 13 38 31 35 37 32 34 36 33
5.2 Phase 2: micro-assignment
Demand 18 is assigned to zone 1, according to phase 1. A committee of four decision-makers D 1 , D 2 , D 3 and D 4 is

responsible for ranking the available parking spaces in this zone by their adequacy to demand 18. They provide
linguistic ratings for the five candidates under all criteria (Table 13) that are themselves linguistically assessed (Table 12
).
Table 13
The table layout displayed in this section is not how it will appear in the ﬁnal version. The representation below is solely
i
Linguistic assessments for alternatives.
Criteria Alternatives Decision makers assessments
D1 D2 D3 D4
C1 P1 VG VG G G
P2 G MG G F
P3 MP P P P
P4 VG VG VG VG
P5 G G F G
C2 P1 G G VG G
P2 F F F F
P3 VG VG VG VG
P4 P F F P
P5 MG G MG MG
C3 P1 VG VG VG VG
P2 F F G MG
P3 G G G F
P4 MP F MP MG
P5 G G MG F
C4 P1 MP MP MP MP
P2 G G G VG
P3 MP MG F G
P4 VG VG G VG
P5 F F G MP
C5 P1 G G G MG
P2 VG VG VG G
P3 F G F F
P4 VG MG G G
P5 G VG MG F
C6 P1 G MP P F
P2 MG F F F
P3 VG VG G VG
P4 G VG G G
P5 F MG F G
C7 P1 F F F F
P2 G G MG G
P3 VG VG G G
P4 G F F MG
P5 P P MP MP
C8 P1 MG MG G MG
P2 VG VG VG G
P3 MG MG MG G
P4 G G G G
P5 VG G VG VG
C9 P1 F G G G
P2 F F G MG
P3 G G G VG
P4 VG VG G VG
P5 F MG MG F
C 10 P1 G G VG G
P2 VG VG VG VG
P3 F MG MG MP
P4 F F F F
P5 VG G VG VG
C 11 P1 VG VG VG VG
P2 F F G MG
P3 G G G F
P4 MP P F VP
P5 G G MG F
Table 12
Linguistic assessments for the eleven criteria.
Criteria Decision makers assessments
D1 D2 D3 D4
C1 VH VH VH VH
C2 VH H H VH
C3 VH VH VH VH
C4 H H M MH
C5 VH VH VH H
C6 VH VH VH VH
C7 VH VH H VH
C8 H VH H H
C9 H H H H
C 10 VH VH VH VH
C 11 ML H ML M
Based on Tables 12 and 13, the fuzzy weight for criteria (Table 14) as well as the rating of alternatives regarding each
criterion (Table 15) are computed and then aggregated.
Table 14
Aggregation of fuzzy weight for the 11 criteria.
Criteria Decision makers assessments
D1 D2 D3 D4
C1 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
C2 (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.5,10)
C3 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
C4 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (3,5,7) (5,7,9) (3,7.5,10)
C5 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.75,10)
C6 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
C7 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.75,10)
C8 (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.25,10)
C9 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10)
C 10 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
C 11 (1,3,5) (7,9,10) (1,3,5) (3,5,7) (1,5,10)
Table 15
Aggregation of fuzzy weights for alternatives.

Criteria Alternatives Decision makers assessments
D1 D2 D3 D4
C1 P1 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.5,10)
P2 (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (7,9,10) (3,5,7) (3,7.5,10)
P3 (1,3,5) (0,1,3) (0,1,3) (0,1,3) (0,1.5,5)
P4 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
P5 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (3,8,10)
C2 P1 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.25,10)
P2 (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7)
P3 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
P4 (0,1,3) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (0,1,3) (0,3,7)
P5 (5,7,9) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (5,7,9) (5,7.5,10)
C3 P1 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
P2 (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (3,6.5,10)
P3 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (3,5,7) (3,8,10)
P4 (1,3,5) (3,5,7) (1,3,5) (5,7,9) (1,4.5,9)
P5 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (3,7.5,10)
C4 P1 (1,3,5) (1,3,5) (1,3,5) (1,3,5) (1,3,5)
P2 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.25,10)
P3 (1,3,5) (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (1,6,10)
P4 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.75,10)
P5 (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (1,3,5) (1,5.5,10)
C5 P1 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (5,8.5,10)
P2 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.75,10)
P3 (3,5,7) (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5.5,9)
P4 (9,10,10) (5,7,9) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (5,8.75,10)
P5 (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (3,7.75,10)
C6 P1 (7,9,10) (1,3,5) (0,1,3) (3,5,7) (0,4.5,10)
P2 (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5.5,9)
P3 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.75,10)
P4 (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.25,10)
P5 (3,5,7) (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (3,6.5,10)
C7 P1 (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7)

P2 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (7,9,10) (5,8.5,10)
P3 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.5,10)
P4 (7,9,10) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (5,7,9) (3,6.5,10)
P5 (0,1,3) (0,1,3) (1,3,5) (1,3,5) (0,2,5)
C8 P1 (5,7,9) (5,7,9) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (5,7.5,10)
P2 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.75,10)
P3 (5,7,9) (5,7,9) (5,7,9) (7,9,10) (5,7.5,10)
P4 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10)
P5 (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.75,10)
C9 P1 (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (3,8,10)
P2 (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (3,6.5,10)
P3 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.25,10)
P4 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.75,10)
P5 (3,5,7) (5,7,9) (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (3,6,9)
C 10 P1 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (7,9.25,10)
P2 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
P3 (3,5,7) (5,7,9) (5,7,9) (1,3,5) (1,5.5,9)
P4 (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (3,5,7)
P5 (9,10,10) (7,9,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (7,9.75,10)
C 11 P1 (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10) (9,10,10)
P2 (3,5,7) (3,5,7) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (3,6.5,10)
P3 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (3,5,7) (3,8,10)
P4 (1,3,5) (1,3,5) (3,5,7) (5,7,9) (1,4.5,9)
P5 (7,9,10) (7,9,10) (5,7,9) (3,5,7) (3,7.5,10)
Table 16 represents the normalized fuzzy decision matrix elaborated using Eqs. (8) and (9).
Table 16
Normalized fuzzy decision matrix for alternatives.
Criteria Normalized ratings
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
C1 0 10 (0.7,0.95,1) (0.3,0.75,1) (0,0.15,0.5) (0.9,1,1) (0.3,0.8,1)
C2 0 10 (0.7,0.925,1) (0.3,0.5,0.7) (0.9,1,1) (0,0.3,0.7) (0.5,0.75,1)

C3 1 10 (0.9,1,1) (0.3,0.65,1) (0.3,0.8,1) (0.1,0.45,0.9) (0.3,0.75,1)
C4 1 10 (0.1,0.3,0.5) (0.7,0.925,1) (0.1,0.6,1) (0.7,0.975,1) (0.1,0.55,1)
C5 3 10 (0.5,0.85,1) (0.7,0.975,1) (0.3,0.55,0.9) (0.5,0.875,1) (0.3,0.775,1)
C6 0 10 (0,0.45,1) (0.3,0.55,0.9) (0.7,0.975,1) (0.7,0.925,1) (0.3,0.65,1)
C7 0 10 (0.3,0.5,0.7) (0.5,0.85,1) (0.7,0.95,1) (0.3,0.65,1) (0,0.2,0.5)
C8 5 10 (0.5,0.75,1) (0.7,0.975,1) (0.5,0.75,1) (0.7,0.9,1) (0.7,0.975,1)
C9 3 10 (0.3,0.8,1) (0.3,0.65,1) (0.7,0.925,1) (0.7,0.975,1) (0.3,0.6,0.9)
C 10 1 10 (0.7,0.925,1) (0.9,1,1) (0.1,0.55,0.9) (0.3,0.5,0.7) (0.7,0.975,1)
C 11 1 10 (0.9,1,1) (0.3,0.65,1) (0.3,0.8,1) (0.1,0.45,0.9) (0.3,0.75,1)
The weighted normalized ratings for each alternative and its final fuzzy evaluation value are calculated by Eq. (10) and
given in Table 17.
Table 17
Weighted normalized alternatives.
Criteria Normalized ratings
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
C1 (6.3,9.5,10) (2.7,7.5,10) (0,1.5,5) (8.1,10,10) (2.7,8,10)
C2 (4.9,8.7875,10) (2.1,4.75,7) (6.3,9.5,10) (0,2.85,7) (3.5,7.125,10)
C3 (8.1,10,10) (2.7,6.5,10) (2.7,8,10) (0.9,4.5,9) (2.7,7.5,10)
C4 (0.3,2.25,5) (2.1,6.937,10) (0.3,4.5,10) (2.1,7.3125,10) (0.3,4.125,10)
C5 (3.5,8.2875,10) (4.9,9.506,10) (2.1,5.3625,9) (3.5,8.53125,10) (2.1,7.55625,10)
C6 (0,4.5,10) (2.7,5.5,9) (6.3,9.75,10) (6.3,9.25,10) (2.7,6.5,10)
C7 (2.1,4.875,7) (3.5,8.287,10) (4.9,9.2625,10) (2.1,6.3375,10) (0,1.95,5)
C8 (3.5,6.9375,10) (4.9,9.018,10) (3.5,6.9375,10) (4.9,8.325,10) (4.9,9.01875,10)
C9 (2.1,7.2,10) (2.1,5.85,10) (4.9,8.325,10) (4.9,8.775,10) (2.1,5.4,9)
C 10 (6.3,9.25,10) (8.1,10,10) (0.9,5.5,9) (2.7,5,7) (6.3,9.75,10)
C 11 (0.9,5,10) (0.3,3.25,10) (0.3,4,10) (0.1,2.25,9) (0.3,3.75,10)
(38,76.5875,102) (36.1,77,106) (32.2,72.6375,103) (35.6,73.13125,102) (27.6,70.675,104)
The difference between each two final fuzzy evaluations separately are summarized in Table 18 and calculated as
previously explained.
Table 18
Difference between two final fuzzy evaluations values.
(-68,-0.5125,65.9) (-64,3.45625,66.4)
(-65,3.95,69.8) (-66,5.9125,74.4)
(-66.9,4.4625,73.8) (-65.9,3.96875,70.4)
(-67.9,6.425,78.4) (-69.8,-0.49375,67.4)
(-71.8,1.9625,75.4) (-68.4,2.45625,74.4)
The next two matrixes are fuzzy preference relation matrix E and fuzzy strict preference relation matrix constructed
on the basis of Eqs. (12) and (13).
(15)
(16)
The penultimate step of this phase corresponds to the calculation of the non-dominated degree of each alternative, the
results of which are as follows.
These values indicate that the alternative has the highest non-dominated degree. This is why it is deleted from the
fuzzy strict preference matrix and the new fuzzy strict preference matrix is established.
(17)
Considering this new matrix, the new non-dominated degree values are computed.
The alternative gets the highest non-dominated degree. We delete it from the fuzzy strict preference matrix and
repeat the last two steps until getting the ranking order to the five alternatives that is .
5.3 Phase 3: conflict handling
5 drivers are assigned to zone 1 containing 5 available parking spaces. The parking spaces are classified according to
their degree of non-domination (output of the micro-assignment phase). The goods transported by these conductors are
not time-sensitive. Therefore, only the quantity is used to settle disputes. Parking requests are ranked by their heaviness.
Requests 15, 17 and 18 have the same top-ranked place (place 5), so demand 17 is assigned to place 5, 15 to place 4
and 18 to place 1 (Table 19).
Table 19
Parking space assigned to each request of zone 1.
Request Quantity in kg Ranking of parking spaces Place
18 72 5 4 1 3 2 1
15 150 5 4 1 3 2 4
17 410 5 4 1 3 2 5
16 173 3 2 1 4 5 3
9 300 2 3 1 4 5 2
5.4 Performance evaluation
Our solution’s performance is evaluated by two metrics: satisfied demand rate defined as the ratio of assigned parking
requests to received ones and total walking distance given by the sum of distances from the parking spaces to the
delivery points.
Keeping the data described above, two scenarios are simulated:
• A baseline scenario that represents the current situation in the study area where drivers, by nature, park
in the nearest space to their destination;
• Evaluated scenario where our solution is deployed to manage urban parking.
In compliance with the outcome of the macro-assignment phase, two drivers out of the thirty-eight will not be assigned
during the required time slot and thereafter the satisfied demand rate is 94.73684 %. On the other hand, if drivers are
solely responsible for finding a parking space, this performance indicator has a value of 78.94737%. Our proposal
thereby reduces the number of unsatisfied parking requests fourfold.
The total walking distance is calculated considering that drivers’ flexibility is zero, i.e. all drivers must park upon arrival
and cannot wait. It is equal for the reference scenario to 861 meters and for the evaluated scenario to 544 meters. It is
thus decreased thanks to our solution by more than 300 meters.
Our approach is also compared to other related methods adopting the same performance measures. The demand
satisfaction rate reaches 60% in Mejri et al. (2013), 75% in Mejri et al. (2014) and 90% in Mejri et al. (2016) against
95% in our study. It is improved by 16.7% with respect to the baseline scenario in Comi et al. (2018) and by 20% in
our paper. The walking distance is shortened by 10% with regard to the current situation in Muñuzuri et al. (2017) and
by 37% in our article.
6 Conclusion
In this paper, we propose an urban parking management tool that addresses problems encountered by drivers when
looking for a free parking space. It allocates available parking spaces to all road users, with the aim to provide the most
appropriate places for deliverers without compromising the possibility of parking an individual vehicle. It is centered on
fuzzy theory and supplemented by two algorithms, the first distributes parking requests over the city’s zones and the
second manages conflicts related to assigning several drivers to the same place. It introduces transparent and equitable
rules for urban parking operations, contributes to mitigating their negative environmental effects and increases revenues
from private parking.
The proposed tool can be enhanced with algorithms for delivery trip planning, dynamic city zoning (clustering of
parking spaces and shops according to their proximity) and time-dependent variable parking pricing. It can be
incorporated into a decision-support software for urban logistics management already used by municipalities. It may be
rendered more efficient by exploiting information and communication technologies.
Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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Footnotes
Article Footnotes
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Q1 A hybrid modeling approach for parking assignment in

Q2Q3 Hanae Erroussoa,b,c,a,b,c, Jihane El Ouadia,b,c,a,b,c, El Arbi Abdellaoui Alaouic,d,⁎,c,d,⁎ abdellaoui.e@gmail.com

elarbi.abdellaoui@eigsica.ma, Siham Benhadoua,b, Hicham Medromia,b

Q5 ⁎ Corresponding author at: EIGSI, La Rochelle, France.

Keywords: Urban parking management; Fuzzy logic; Freight transport; Conflict handling

Pinto et al., 2016 – – – – – – – – –

Tamayo et al., 2017 – – – – – – – – – –

Roca-Riu et al., 2015 – – – – – – – – – –

Letnik et al., 2018 – – – – – – –

Mu ñuzuri et al., 2017 – – – – – – – – –

Comi et al., 2018 – – – – – – –

Abidi et al., 2015 – – – – – – – – – –

Ratli et al., 2019 – – – – – – – – –

Geng et al., 2011 – – – – – – – – –

Venkataramanan and Bornstein,

Hakeem et al., 2016 – – – – – – – – –

Hakeem et al., 2017 – – – – – – – – –

Mejri et al., 2013 – – – – – – – – –

3 Preliminary about fuzzy logic

Linguistic terms for objective ratings.

Very poor (VP)

Medium poor (MP)

Medium good (MG)

Very good (VG)

Linguistic terms for criteria ratings.

Linguistic term Membership function

Very low (VL)

Medium low (ML)

Medium high (MH)

Very high (VH)

4 Proposed approach principle

Parking space allocation architecture.

• Let be a parking request

1: Calculate correspondence matrix

2: Compute coverage rate for each request

3: Calculate solicitation rate of each urban area

4: Rank areas of a city in ascending order of their solicitation rate

5: Update ▷ to be a sorting of urban zones

Output: parking requests assigned to zone

6: for each zone do

7: ▷ Initialize the number of parking requests assigned to zone

8: end for

9: Rank parking requests in increasing order of their coverage rate

10: Update ▷ to be a sorting of parking requests

11: for each request do

14: if ( and ) then

15: Assign parking demand to zone

19: end if

20: end for

22: end for

23: for each request do

25: for each zone do

28: if then

30: else

31: Write “Please extend your maximum walking distance”

33: end if

34: end for