An early report by WS Atkins and the DETR (published September 1998) studied the effects of Park and Ride systems in eight towns and cities, including Coventry. It showed that (at that time) the Coventry Park and Ride scheme called for a subsidy of £5.87 per intercepted car. Other reports indicate that the majority of permanent park and ride schemes have to be supported by funding from the local authority.
Whether Park and Ride will work is a highly complex question. The most successful applications seems to have been in historical cities, Oxford being the shining example of a successful Park and Ride scheme. Even there the scheme suffered financial difficulty in its early stages. According to a Loughborough University Survey (published 2008) its survival "can be attributed to some degree to the "strength of political will" in terms of financial support and a determination to succeed, which allowed the scheme to survive through an infancy of low patronage.... Policy-makers saw Park and Ride in Oxford as a component within a portfolio of measures that included bus priority, pedestrianisation and central parking controls".
The Loughborough survey concludes that, "for Park and Ride to be successful, it should be implemented in tandem with other supply-side measures and alongside sufficiently rigorous restraint instruments. ... Park and Ride should not be viewed as a standalone measure. It should be implemented as a component alongside an effective package of restraint measures on car use."
The present proposal to introduce Park and Ride for Leamington includes none of these, nor any assessment of the financial implications to the town to get it established. Without these and the assurance that they would be acceptable, it is too easy to think of reasons why it will fail and the proposal should not be in the Plan.