Airport Parking Management

So I’ve always been sort of intrigued by electric cars.  Back in the late 1890’s and early 1900's many of the earliest car designs had electric motors… but ultimately gasoline proved to be more convenient than batteries for a hundred years or so.

Fast forward to today:  GM popularized the EV1 electric car, and then killed it, and is now bringing it back – or at least something like it.  Every major manufacturer has an electric car or a hybrid in the works.  And disruptive technologies like this give birth to new companies with new products (like Tesla Motors, for instance).

So the electric car – or a gas-electric hybrid version – is here to stay.  The big question for our industry is how this might affect parking.  Should a parking space come with an electrical outlet?  Could a parker purchase electricity on demand?

Interestingly, one only needs to look to the Northern States or Canada to find parking stalls with electrical outlets.  These were never intended for recharging… instead these outlets are designed to keep the engine from freezing on a those minus 40 degree days.  Power in these outlets may not be constant, but rather cycled on-and-off according to temperature - fine for block heaters, but not so good for vehicle charging.

Demand for electric-enabled parking stall will probably increase.  But would customers be willing to pay more to park their electrical vehicle in the electric-enabled stall?  Probably, since parkers would also reduce their "range anxiety" by gaining more charge (despite that 80% of American drivers commute less than 40 miles per day).

For on-street or surface parking there are vendors in our industry (1, 2, 3) already looking at providing the on-demand electricity for vehicle charging – I’m sure we’ll see some at the IPI conference this year.  In addition, such vendors are looking at enabling the electricity only when the parker has paid for parking – so if you don’t feed money to the meter then the meter doesn’t feed the juice to your car.

Most parking managers already know that electrical costs are a big maintenance cost for a garage.  Adding electrical outlets for parkers will increase costs further by draining even more power.  Fortunately there are solutions – installing electron-sipping LED lights helps, and adding roof-based solar or wind power generation on buttresses can make more power available.

Potentially, however, the best innovation is yet to come:  technologies suggest that tomorrow’s electric vehicle will be able to communicate with the electric grid itself.  It will be smart enough to re-charge when costs are low, trickle-charge when costs are high, and even put surplus power from the batteries back into the grid when demand is really high (presumably generating a credit for the vehicle owner).

Parking has embraced technology and change over the years, and not shockingly the rise of the electric car is likely to have an impact in our industry over the next several years.
 

For a girl who purposely chose a career in marketing and communications – not just because I’ve been writing since I was way young and everyone said I was good at it - but because I’m not AT ALL technical (just ask my IT husband or IT buddies here at T2), I’ve managed to build a career working for high-tech companies in high-tech industries. 

It’s funny to me that I’ve gone from working in the cable-TV and wireless phone test and measurement industry to working in the parking industry…who knew? All of this without a technical or engineering degree! I never figured I’d be getting paid to make the installation and network monitoring equipment for CATV networks and test equipment for cell phones and wireless networks sound and look cool. And now I’m doing the same for software for parking: permit management, PARCS solutions, citation management and citation collections, etc. Wow! Isn’t that exciting (can you hear it in my voice?).  Actually, it is kind of cool.

Yes, although most don’t know it, parking is actually a technical industry. Sure, it’s not the same as NASA or computers and servers, but there’s a lot of technology behind parking – and it is exciting.

And now that Spring is here (the couple of 70-degree days we have had here in Indiana have been teasing us), it’s also officially tradeshow season. In addition to Spring Break, I’m also counting down the days until the International Parking Institute (IPI) annual conference and tradeshow (no, not just because it’s in Vegas). For those of you looking to find more information about municipal or city parking solutions, campus parking solutions, access and revenue control, software for parking and parking technology, Spring brings many opportunities to meet with vendors and network with other parking professionals. From Chicago to New England, to Texas to Las Vegas – no matter what geographic area - there are many conferences planned in the coming months and now’s the time to go and see what’s happening in our industry! And of course come see T2 – we’re either exhibiting or sponsoring (and attending) most of these events. We have some new news to share about our PARCS and event parking management solutions. Learn how technology (and T2 of course) can be your friend as you try to improve your parking operations.

When you stop and think about it, even us non-techies watch cable TV, have a computer, use a cell phone, and sometime or another have to park our car. And there’s a whole lot of technology behind getting those parking gates to go up and down  – “things that make the world go ‘round” I say!

There is a new show on CBS called Undercover Boss (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/undercover_boss/) that everyone should watch.  The first episode featured the CEO of the company that my husband works for.  He works for Recycle America Alliance which is part of Waste Management.  President and COO Larry O'Donnell picked a few different jobs and went out with staff level employees undercover as a new employee.  Wow, was he shocked.  He is a leader with great intentions, but didn't really understand all of what goes into making his company a success until he got down, literally, into the dirt.

Of course, I imagined our President and CEO, Mike Simmons fielding Support calls, and installing our parking management software and thought, BAD IDEA!  The man is the President and CEO for a reason!  He knows how to find the right people that can find the right people, that can find the right people (repeating for affect:)) to do the job well.

Our company is not as big as Waste Management, nor are the parking organizations that use our software.  So, we shouldn't be shocked about what happens in our organizations. We should be able to be in tune with the day to day.  Since everyone already knows me in my area, I can't exactly go undercover:).  Instead, I have opted to step in for my staff several times in my management experience to be able to 1. help out during busy times and 2. stay current in what their roles entail.  It is still eye opening to me and I am only one level removed. 

Look at it a different way and think about what it means to be a parker and what they experience through our organizations.  Sure, there are plenty of customers out there that, well, feel they DESERVE to park wherever they want.  But think about the parkers that have the best intentions, try to follow the rules, and can't because of poor signage or badly written rules and regulations.

Yesterday, Linda Kauffman (VP of Industry Solutions) and I were visiting a customer in Baltimore.  We parked in a garage (public garage, not our customer's) near where our meeting was being held and had difficulty parking AND leaving.  The signage was difficult to understand, stairways led to the point of no return, and leaving- we drove through the parking garage for more than 5 minute trying to figure out where the exit was.

My point in this ramble is that we should all be trying to put ourselves in other people's shoes to do the best job we can.  For our staff, the only way to advocate for them properly is to have a better understanding of their day-to-day.  For our customers, the only way to serve them best is to understand their needs. 

It is pretty simple isn't it?

Recently I was visiting a customer site and I got the chance of a lifetime...I tagged along with parking enforcement officers. Now, some of you are saying "big deal, I do that every day." However, for those of us way, way, way behind the front lines, this was a fantastic experience.

We started out on a street with parking meters and immediately we saw that red light flashing. EXPIRED!! Yes! This is my chance to catch a parking enforcement officer in action. We jumped out of the van rather "COPS"-esque and off we go to issue the parking citation to the violator. We had to work fast, mostly because it was cold. There I was, recording his every move. Wes, the parking enforcement officer, wrote that ticket in a matter of seconds, slid the orange envelope of shame under the wiper blade and away we went, back to the van and on to the next adventure.

Our next parking ticket came on a permitted street. You know, I have no idea how they spotted the violator. I am such a novice. Anyways, the van door slid open and out we jumped, like members of a SWAT team. No permit, YESSSS! This time, Wes took a picture of the illegally parked car with his handheld ticket writer. Nice! That picture will go on to the parking citation in the parking management system which virtually makes the ticket iron clad.

After a few more tickets and a not so happy parker turned violator, we were back at the office. Wow, what a day. I am not too sure how the parking enforcement officers do it on a daily basis. My kudos go out to them!!
 

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...

I will admit it...I have attempted (very unsuccessfully I might add) to get out of many speeding tickets in my driving career. Yes, I have a lead foot and that has cost me some pretty good money over the years. I have cried. I have used my powers of female persuasion, which come to find out aren't all that persuasive.  I even hit rock bottom, I faked being sick. Nothing has saved me from the impending doom.

Parking tickets, on the other hand, I just take as a fact of life. I see the Parking Enforcement Officer coming with their handheld ticket writer and I just know what's coming. So, instead of trying to get out of it, I just accept the parking citation and move on. That's not because I work for a company that produces parking management software, it's because I just don't want to put forth that much effort to avoid the inevitable. 

This commercial, however, shows some of the lengths people will go to it avoid that horrible parking citation. I mean really...like it is all that bad. I would much rather pay for a $25 parking ticket than that $180 speeding ticket and 4 points on my license...I'm just sayin'.

Speaking (or writing) as a marketing professional who comes from the OLD world of “bingo” cards for sales leads and regular phone calls as a way of staying connected to customers, I now have to consider how to incorporate BLOGS and FACEBOOK into my corporate marketing plan. What? You mean Facebook…the way I stay connected with friends who aren’t close by…is also something I have to consider as a way to help my company? And for that matter… as a way to discuss parking and parking management solutions? Who wants to talk about parking if you don’t have to?

Well actually, those of you who live and breathe parking everyday do need to talk to others in the business. You know, the whole concept of sharing ideas, best practices…all that jazz (the stuff we like to say about our own User Group conference). You also just may need to blow off some steam to someone else who understands. 

But you know what? You also need to talk to your vendors and providers. All of us here at T2 Systems are working hard to make “doing business” with us easier…developing new solutions for our customer website as well as other online tools that put information at your fingertips. But that’s not the same as really communicating with – and getting to know - your parking solution vendor. It's not always about the parking system or the software.  T2’s strength has always been the tight relationships we’ve had with our customers and in this world of technology it’s often harder to maintain those relationships the way we’d like. 

So - we’re finally venturing out… using blogs, Facebook and other tools to engage with you. And we really do want this to be about you. Whether you’re a current T2 customer or one who is managing parking or “touches” parking in some way, please talk with us and talk with EACH OTHER. Let’s share how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking; share ideas, suggestions, concerns, challenges, etc. Let’s talk to each other like we do our friends. I’m thinking maybe we can continue our history of maintaining great relationships and possibly even foster new ones!