Parking Planning | Qingdao’s Central Urban Area Plans to Add Over 190,000 Parking Spaces

The Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning has announced the official release of the “Revised Special Plan for Parking in Qingdao’s Central Urban Area” (hereinafter referred to as the “Special Plan”). The plan covers the entire administrative area of Qingdao, with a primary focus on the Shinan District, Shibei District, Licang District, Laoshan District, Chengyang District (including the Hongdao Economic Zone), and the West Coast New Area. The planning horizon extends from the near term to 2022 and to the long term by 2035.

The Special Plan specifies that a total of 867 public parking facilities are planned, providing approximately 190,400 parking spaces. Among these, 83 public parking facilities are slated for construction in the near term, providing approximately 22,500 parking spaces. Areas such as Jimo, Jiaozhou, Pingdu, and Laixi should develop dedicated parking master plans, rationally delineate parking zones, and implement differentiated supply‑and‑control measures. They should appropriately regulate the scale and spatial distribution of public parking facilities, formulate comprehensive parking solutions guided by the principles of “curbing demand, optimizing supply, enhancing efficiency, and strengthening governance,” and ensure these plans are coordinated with and aligned to central urban‑area policies on parking provision, smart parking management, and related policy measures.

The objective of this plan is to optimize and adjust parking capacity and spatial distribution, establish a well‑structured parking supply system, and implement comprehensive measures to alleviate parking shortages. By refining policies and regulations and strengthening governance mechanisms, the plan seeks to foster a favorable environment for the parking industry. Furthermore, by promoting coordination between dynamic and static traffic management, it aims to effectively enhance urban quality.

In response, the Special Plan proposes a comprehensive set of countermeasures. First, grounded in the city’s overall transport development and guided by the principle of “layered zoning and differentiated forecasting,” it employs an integrated approach to project the growth of private car ownership, total parking spaces, and public parking capacity; delineates three categories of parking zones, and implements tailored supply and management strategies; establishes designated tourist and transit‑transfer parking facilities; sets up tourism hubs and park-and-ride interchanges at key external transportation hubs, along major access corridors, and near peripheral scenic areas; integrates public parking into mixed‑use developments around rail stations; and locates dedicated tourist parking areas in the vicinity of core scenic zones. Second, aside from stand‑alone public parking facilities, it plans and regulates public parking through multiple compatible uses—such as co‑locating with civic buildings, bus terminals, green spaces, and civil defense facilities—to effectively expand supply. Third, for areas where parking shortages are particularly acute, such as historic districts, it adopts a “comprehensive governance” framework, leveraging measures including tapping off‑street parking potential, promoting parking sharing, upgrading on‑street parking, and deploying intelligent guidance systems, thereby achieving integrated, precision‑driven management through collaborative and targeted interventions.