Train for Success

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 by LaDonna Sloan

We all know the benefits of a good employee training program; training has a positive effect on performance by allowing employees to learn advanced techniques to help them complete their everyday tasks more efficiently.  More efficient employees feel more valued and appreciated which leads to reduced turnover and less of a need for supervision.  Trained employees are motivated employees and the entire organization achieves its goals more readily.

Don't invest in your parking management software and hardware without also optimizing your staff.  The T2 Training Department offers several solutions for all your parking permit management, parking access and revenue control and parking citation collections training needs - and at quite a reasonable price!  Arm your employees with access to a recorded video library with over 60 courses they can view at their convenience.  Further reward their accomplishment by allowing them to become a Flexpert on your parking system software with T2 Flex certifications on Front Line Permits, Front Line Citations, Front Line Supervisor, Access and Revenue Control and Finance and Audit Control. 

Training does not have to be costly.  Access to the Recorded Video Library is less than $400 a year and every member of the organization can access the courses that are relevant to their roles.  For just a little extra, the training team will set your staff up with an agenda and links to tests. Upon successful completion of all 9 courses, the participant is awarded a certificate.  It's a win-win solution to the age-old problem of providing a successful training program.  You have the peace of mind that your staff has demonstrated competency and your staff has the skills to meet and exceed expectations in their career.  Make the investment that will ensure your team’s success - invest in training!

Maximizing Efficiency with a Unified Parking Solution and Asset Management

Monday, November 14, 2011 by Sarah Kimmett
Facilitating the Asset Management class at T2's User Group always proves to be a learning experience - even for the instructor. This year I was happy to see the turn out was as good as it was a few years ago when I taught the class.  In those few years, T2's Asset Management module, which is part of of the T2 Flex parking system software, has evolved quite a bit.  It now includes automatic assigned work order responsibilities and scheduling for reoccuring work orders.

We discussed ways to become more unified in how we use T2's advanced parking solution during the session.  Many customers also take advantage of T2's Parking Access and Revenue Control solution, Handheld Ticket Writers, and Event Parking Management solution.  With the Asset Management module, users can now track the hardware and other assets used for those solutions!

Tracking regular maintenance of parking garage equipment, handheld ticket writers, customer self service kiosks, even elevators and vehicles with T2 Flex's Asset Management makes our customers live's easier, and nothing feels better than that.  Asset Management in T2 Flex conveniently maintains the scheduling for an asset to be used with an event or scheduling regular maintenance or a repair as it prompts the user when a schedule conflict occurs.

Many of T2's customers were also excited about taking another approach at being unified in that they could use the T2 Flex Report Scheduler to send automatic notifcations to workers about assets they manage that require maintenance.  Even better is the fact that parking enforcement officers can enter, maintain, and close work orders (including attaching photos!) right on the handheld ticket writer!

Becoming unified means becoming more efficient with your parking system software. 

Shifting Gears

Thursday, November 10, 2011 by Mark Della-Croce
After 7 years of working in a major retailer's IT department, I decided I needed a change of pace. While I built up some great relationships with my coworkers, the work itself was monotonous.  I needed to work on something bigger and more creative.  So when I got a call from one my friends who worked at T2 Systems, I was curious. Two of my friends had left my current company to work there, so I'd heard a lot about the awesome T2 culture. But how would it benefit my career as an Application Developer? How complicated could software that lets you in and out of garages be? I mean, you drive up, press a button, and get a ticket, right? Turns out, there is a whole lot more involved than just that! This week has been eye-opening as I've learned about everything our main product, T2 Flex, does. It is a single unified parking solution covering everything from parking access and revenue control to parking permit management to even handheld ticket writers. It is all highly advanced and fascinating to learn about.

So how will this move benefit my career? T2 has taken pains to stay ahead of the curb--I mean curve--in the industry, and the technology that makes all of those things possible is innovative and interesting. I'm now able to develop and code with experts in the field using software and technology that is industry-leading, be challenged by my work, and have opportunities to be creative!

So now I'm shifting gears and looking forward to the future with T2!

Culture Shock? More Like Culture Rock!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011 by Mike Nitowski
 I made the choice to take a position at T2 for a variety of reasons; one of the biggest was the culture.  After one day at T2 I was impressed by what this organization has done to create such an exciting and refreshing atmosphere.  While many people have moved and changed jobs, moving into this company was like none other.  The transparency T2 provides shows great pride within the organization and it’s reflected in each associate.  In never having worked for a company that so conciously promotes culture, it has been a wild experience getting involved in T2.

I was also impressed by the industry.  At first I didn’t know what to think about access and revenue control, parking garage software and parking ticketing management, but getting more of an understanding of this 25 Billion dollar industry, I see nothing but more potential, growth and opportunity. T2 is an industry leader because of our products, and I am proud to be part of the excitement.  I never thought that working in advanced parking solutions, talking about access revenue control and permit management would be my next career move, but after getting learning more and meeting so many of our great customers at User Group, I see nothing but potential.  When the staff likes the company and the customers like the company, it creates a really special place of incredible promise.

It’s the people that make this company what it is.  It seems like in this economy, business is all about the bottom line.  While financials are important, the leadership here at T2 doesn’t forget about their roots and how vital each person is in the grand scheme of things.  I was excited to get to work today and I cannot wait to see what’s in store for me tomorrow!

How I was a Parking Doctor

Saturday, October 1, 2011 by Irena Goloschokin

One of the cool features of the Canadian Parking Association annual conference is Lunch with a Parking Doctor, where delegates come with their parking management ailments and get a prescription for the cure from experienced professionals in the parking business. Sounds, great, doesn't it?

Since I have never managed a parking operation, and since my primary goal at the Conference is to meet with T2 customers and others in the industry to learn about trends and needs in parking enforcement, permit management, acess and revenue control and event parking,  I am typically the patient at these lunches. But not this year.

I was summoned to one of the tables by CPA's Sandra Smith and given a patient to consult with. To be honest, I did suffer a short moment of panic (did I mention I had never run a parking operation?). But then I summoned all the knowledge I had gained over the years from my friends and customers who run some of the most advanced parking operations in North America, took a deep breath, and started the consultation.

The patients were quite new to parking and I actually was able to provide them with reasonable recommendations. Their need was to increase revenue from a downtown garage in close proximity to an arena that was only used for monthly parkers. Here was my prescription: 

1) Implement a Parking Access and Revenue Control System, collect and analyze occupancy by different groups (residents, employees, etc.) by time of day and day of the week. Then allocate identified open capacity to transient parkers.
2) Make the building security card the parking credential for Parking Access Control.

3) Use the relationship with the arena management group to start pre-selling parking online when patrons buy event tickets, to drive event parking customers to your facility.

4) Offer online coupons to parkers to attract them to your facility.

If you have other ideas please send them to me and I will share with my patients during the next consultation.

$17 million in outstanding parking tickets

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 by Alec Synnestvedt
When it comes to parking citation collections, New York City has a $16.7 million problem on their hands. Diplomats, it seems, do not like to park legally. New York City is home to 289 foreign missions and consulates, many of which have been issued multitudes of tickets for safety violations and blocked fire hydrants. Scofflaw diplomats, drawing on the power of their national treasuries, owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid parking tickets, and the leaderboard is impressive: 
  1. Egypt: $1.9 million
  2. Nigeria: $1 million
  3. Indonesia: $725,000
With hundreds of diplomats swarming the city last week for the UN General Assembally, one congressionial spokesperson said, "We can only imagine how much is being racked up." 

The phenomenon has already been legislated against in Congress; current law states that 110% of total unpaid parking fines owed to NYC and D.C. are to be withheld from foreign aid and obligations. But New York remains diplomatically shorted--they never collect the missing millions.

Congress is not one of the most advanced parking solutions, and in a last-ditch effort to reign in the diplomat's debts, they are considering an alternative option: revoking diplomatic liscenses from nations with outstanding parking fines.

"If you get a ticket in NYC, you have to pay it. No exceptions," said a spokesperson. "New York City's budget is tight enough as it is, and foreign diplomats do not deserve a free pass at the expense of New York City taxpayers."

This issue calls Citation Collection Services (CCS) to mind, another T2 innovation that has helped our customers reclaim hundreds of thousands in lost revenue. Check out this free case study if you'd like to see just how significant collections can be for boosting and managing parking revenues.
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Read more about New York's Parking problem here.



A Little Bit of Magic

Friday, August 19, 2011 by Grant Dawson

I was at T2’s Datacenter the other night, staring at the symphony of blinking lights of the servers and network equipment that make up the Hosting Environment.  In this environment, we host over 160 customer’s parking operations.  To the customer, it’s an application like no other in the industry – allowing a true Unified parking solution with a plethora of business and industry-centric features wrapped around fantastic support and performance.

To me, at the core, it’s a combination of cutting edge servers and equipment transmitting billions upon billions of ones and zeroes, all utilizing amazing technology from top vendors and producing powerful results.

Sound like a lot of adjectives and overly descriptive? Let me simplify it even for myself. The famous science fiction writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  I think that’s a great description of what T2 and other companies living in the technology cloud do every day – deliver magic.  Behind the scenes of the Flex Web Page customers' back offices access, or the eBusiness webpage utilized by your customers, are some of the most amazing pieces of technology all working in efficient harmony to process, store, transmit and keep secure your valuable business data. 

I’ve been at T2 for several years and have watched the environment grow from infancy to a powerful showplace of what a Private Cloud really is and should be (there’s an inside joke in the T2 Hosting Team – “we were in the cloud before the cloud was cool.”)  In my line of work, Information Technology, it’s so easy to get caught up in the technical details and live and breathe the infrastructure that
sometimes, you seem to  forget what your technology is actually providing: solutions to businesses that are run by real people with real needs and real expectations.

And to me, that’s what my job and my coworkers are all about. We take the technical tools and infrastructure and morph and model it into an efficient machine and service that allows our customer’s to excel at their industry – parking management.  We’re proud of our results and of our systems, and we take pride in our offerings.

So what does all this mean to me, the Analyst of T2’s Hosting Team? My goal is simple: the next time you sell a Permit online, look up a citation across a complex system using an advanced query, or monitor your garage from a webpage… and someone asks you – “Hey, how does all that work?”


You can respond, “I’m not sure – I suppose’ it’s a little bit of magic.”

Parking is Complicated

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 by Jim Hutchins
I just passed my four-year mark working in parking. After nearly nineteen years in banking, it took me a while to really understand. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a long, long way from being prepared to sit for the CAPP test,  but I think I can honestly say "I get it" when taking about Parking Access and Revenue Control, Parking Garage Software, Handheld Ticket Writers, and a lot of what goes into managing them.

For me, all that complexity translates back to computing systems that talk to all of those advanced parking solutions that are out there in the world dealing with all of the parkers. Even in the summer when many of T2's customers that use our software as a campus parking solution are at a relatively low volume of parkers, we're seeing around 20,000 transactions a day amounting to around a million dollars and that's just for our customers that use our hosted parking system software. A similar number run their own computer systems running T2's parking software.

Each of those transactions generated has a "footprint" on the servers that we use to host. They translate to memory usage, CPU usage, and disk reads/writes. As a geek and a numbers guy, it is absolutely fascinating to watch the metrics as the complex transactions are processed and completed. The main reason we monitor everything that goes on in our Hosting Environment so that we can make sure there's enough hardware to support all of our customers efficiently and well, but I still think all of those metrics are just plain cool.

Happy Parking.

So...the Internet changed again

Friday, April 1, 2011 by Jason Wolfgang
Used to, we'd use "keywords" in our content to drive Search Engine Optimized results to our Web sites. (ie Buy Advanced Parking Solutions!) Now we put hash marks in front of our keywords and remove the spaces (#buyadvancedparkingsolutions!) as we tweet our content to our followers.
Last year, one study stated that your friends on Facebook drove more internet traffic than Search Engine results.  Google must have found this study credible, as they just announced their version of the Facebook "Like" button.  They're calling this "+1".

How are you driving business to your parking payment system?  Are you using Twitter for promotions? If you don't, it's at least a great way to see what other parking operations are doing.  Here are some folks you can follow:
Do you know what your folks are saying about your parking operation on Facebook?  Or are you avoiding it?  Google may have just made it a little harder to ignore what they are saying about you.

Old School Parking Tickets

Friday, February 11, 2011 by Jim Hutchins
Working with Advanced Parking Solutions every day can change your perspective. I've been with T2 Systems for almost four years now and the time has just flown by. This week we were having a technical discussion about some possible enhancements to the features in the eBusiness (parker-facing) portion of T2's suite of Parking System Software and it reminded me of my first day at T2.

On my first day at T2, I got the first and only parking ticket of my life. Yeah, that's what I said. I'd never gotten a parking ticket before being hired at T2 and I haven't gotten one since. That's probably a combination of me being a conformist detail-oriented rule-follower, and living in the suburbs where there just isn't a lot of parking enforcement going on. There aren't exactly a lot of parking garages in my neighborhood.

For the record, I totally deserved the parking ticket. I parked in a two-hour zone and got stuck for a lot longer than I expected. I didn't make it back to my car for almost four hours. The parking ticket was a whopping $10. Thinking back on that now, I'm surprised how old-school the ticket was. It wasn't produced using an electronic handheld ticket writer. It was pen on two-part-carbonless paper. No parking ticket computer for them. Pure no-tech.

The really frustrating part was that the city parking solution was entirely manual. Not just the ticket writing. The whole darn thing. I had to pay $10 in cash ONLY and I had to pay it in person within 7 days. Oh, and the parking office was already closed for the day. If only they had given me a way to pay online, I'd have done it right then and there. I'd even have paid a few extra bucks to save the extra trip back to pay the fine.

At the end of the day, it just goes to show that there are a lot more places than need good parking enforcement systems and that following the rules works well for me.

From Parking Lot Attendant to Mayor

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 by Stef Faulkenberry
Who says being a parking lot attendant is a dead end job? Well those of us in the parking industry sure don't think so. I mean, there is a plethora of things one can do here in the parking world. And parking can even be a springboard for bigger and better things.

Take Michael Bloomberg for example. The billionaire mayor of New York City - yeah that Michael Bloomberg. Well guess what? He got his start in the parking industry. Yep, he was a parking lot attendant while working his way through college. Now, I doubt he had any advanced parking management system to track scofflaws, etc. But I personally think it is rather inspiring to see someone of this stature start at the bottom and work his way up and for the record, I think it is really cool that he started in parking. 

How to get Beat Up and Fired in the Same Day

Wednesday, November 24, 2010 by Jim Hutchins
Recently I was talking the manager of the company that cleans our office building about facility security to insure that they were following all appropriate security procedures in our space. During that discussion, he told me a story about one of their employees that had a very bad day. The cleaning company has a company-wide policy against propping open doors (even for just a minute). This policy exists to protect their clients as well as their employees. One of their employees didn't follow that policy one night. He had a bunch of boxes to carry out to the dumpster and wanted to do it as quickly as possible. With all of the best intentions, he propped open the door figuring that it would only be for a few minutes. Unfortunately for him, some "bad guys" saw him do that. While he was inside getting a load of boxes, they came in, beat him badly enough to subdue him, and then stole a bunch of computers from the office he was cleaning. Fortunately he fully recovered physically. Unfortunately, his company had to fire him that same day for violating security policies and causing the cleaning company’s client to be victimized because of that violation. Double ouch.

So what does that have to do with Parking, Parking System Software, and Parking Access and Revenue Control? It is all about balancing security with convenience and expediency. Lots of parking facilities accept credit cards. If you take credit cards, you’re subject to PCI compliance rules. Much like the unfortunate employee in the cleaning crew, if you take shortcuts that compromise security, your parking facility could face some rather severe consequences. A parking lot can't be beat up or fired, but your bank could take away your ability to accept credit cards, you could be subject to fines and even huge civil penalties resulting from a credit-card related security breach. When an important or valued customer asks you to "just keep their credit card on file" or emails you their credit card information, it is tempting (and often good customer service) to just do what they ask. Unfortunately, like our ill-fated cleaner, doing that can get you in a lot of trouble.

The key is finding a way to balance good service and following good security practices. Unfortunately, security and convenience are inversely related. It is a heck of a lot more convenient to leave your home unlocked rather than fumble with keys when you come home in the dark with your arms full of groceries, kids, or both, but most of us don’t do that. We lock our homes (and often arm alarm systems) because we want and need to take reasonable precautions to keep our homes safe.

T2 Systems has recently completed our PCI-DSS Assessment to become a Service Provider. As a result of that project, we have been listed on the Visa Global List of PCI DSS Validated Service Providers (http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/cisp-list-of-pcidss-compliant-service-providers.pdf). This is a long, complicated, expensive process, but it was well worth it for us and for our customers. By T2 being a PCI-DSS Service Provider, our Advanced Parking Solutions customers have a lot less PCI-related work ahead of them by using the integrated Parking Payment Systems within our products. Our customers still can’t keep credit card numbers on post-it notes, but they have a whole lot less computer system work to do. Regardless of whether or not you are a T2 Systems customer, diligence with credit cards is critical. Credit card breaches typically don’t result in physical beatings, but if you have to deal with a breach, you may almost envy the guy that was only beat up and fired.

A Geek's View of Parking Management at IPI

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 by Jim Hutchins
In my last blog entry, I said I thought I should stick to what I know (technology) and not dive too deeply into the industry side of parking that many people know so much better. I'll be keeping that in mind again today. So last month I went to the IPI (International Parking Institute) Conference and Expo in Las Vegas. This was my second IPI (after a bit over three years working in the technology side of the parking industry).

After seeing everything there, I have to say that I'm proud to work for T2. I knew we had some pretty cool stuff (end of shameless plug), but it really hit home how much T2 stood out in that room. Don't get me wrong. I'm not slamming anybody. I'm just so accustomed to thinking about technology meaning servers and terabytes of storage and hosting an Advanced Parking Solution. That makes it easy to forget that a lot of the industry has nothing to do with computers and that technology in parking often has nothing to do with computers.

T2 sells Parking Garage Software, Parking Citation Collections, Campus Parking Solutions, Handheld Ticket Writers and a whole lot more cool parking Technology. That's all cool stuff and I love working with it, but how cool is it to sell a giant ice melting machine that you can drive around. I may have lots of cool servers with a bunch of cool blinking lights, but I can't push a button to melt a bunch of snow off of a parking lot. That's got to be a lot more fun than making something go away with the delete key. Most interesting to me was all of the technology in that melting machine. It (and a few other booths) made me realize that lots of parking technology has to do with fuel efficiency and reliability without having even one server. That said, I think the melter had a few blinking lights so it still made me smile.

Happy Parking!

There Sure is a Lot of Data in These Parking Management Systems

Monday, February 8, 2010 by Jim Hutchins

So when I first joined T2 systems nearly three years ago, I knew very little about parking or parking management systems. My only real exposure was as a parker on a college campus. And even with that, my experience with the Campus Parking Solution was only in the form of paying for my permit once a year.

So here I am running a data center full of Software for Parking. Just three years ago we had only a few dozen hosted customers. As of this week we're up to 135 and we're using all sorts of cool technology to keep all of these advanced parking solutions running well.

Just last week we passed the 1.3 BILLION record mark in our production databases. Three years ago I would never have guessed that parking software could generate that much data this quickly. It has been a fun experience growing this environment.

Keep those parkers parking. We've got plenty of room for billions and billions more rows. Maybe we need to invest in a sign that says "billions and billions parked". Hmmmm...

The Bleeding Edge

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 by T2 Systems Guest Blogger

A theme I believe would be of value if brought before vendors in the parking industry and is not terribly unique to just the parking industry is that Information Technology must take priority within their organizations. There are many leaders in this industry that lag grossly behind in software technology advancements that only handcuff parking organizations that have invested heavily in their hardware/software. Whether its providing interoperability (import, export, API, or interfaces), moving to current IT industry standards (IIS, web services, Oracle/MS SQL, Cloud Computing, Software as a Service), or providing PCI compliance, the simple fact is that vendors in the parking industry have not invested in IT to the detriment of themselves and their customers.

When was the last time you wrote a check shopping? How frustrated do you get when you cannot view a bill or an account online? There is a culture being established that is becoming an expectation of our customers that everything can and should be done from an internet connection (via laptop, desktop, iPhone, PDA, cellular device, etc). Parking organizations appear antiquated if they don’t have an “ebusiness” solution. The reality is that many parking organizations must purchase solutions from vendors rather than build their own due to their own lack of IT investment. The industry needs turnkey solutions developed specifically to meet the technology of the times and the expectations of the customers (both external and internal).

I understand there are some in the parking industry that have already seen the writing on the wall and are pioneering an effort forward in this respect (thanks T2 Systems). My hope is that others in the industry will take initiative to develop enterprise level systems that meet the needs of today as well as tomorrow.

Jeff Reed

Project Manager, PMP

The University of Texas at Austin