Campus Parking Solutions

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!

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...

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!
 

Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to visit City & Campus Parking Solutions implemented all across the nation & here's what I've observed:

• Parking Garages east of the Mississippi River typically have the Cashier in the exit lane
• Parking Garages in the SouthWest United States typically have the Cashier centrally located in the garage
• Parking Garages on the West Coast of the United States have the Cashier located as the parker is entering campus 

Am I all wet here or are all you parking professionals just a bunch of copy cats?

“Sail the ship

Chop the tree

Skip the rope

Look at meeee!”

With all apologies to the Beatles, I could think of no better introduction to the newest changes  in Web Development here at T2. 

In the past, eBusiness projects were like snowflakes.  Each one was a little bit different from even its closest neighbor, a carefully refined product that was made to fit whatever the parking office needed at the time.  They shared lots in common but they were just different enough that it sometimes made them hard to upgrade and even harder to add functionality to.  Once your eBusiness project was completed, you were sailing your own ship, independent of the others.

Over the past year, the Web Development team has worked to remedy this by making our online parking solutions upgradeable so that when new functionality is introduced into the product it can not only be used by new customers currently in the deployment process but also applied retroactively to existing customers.  Now all of you can benefit from the great ideas that our customers bring to us every day.  The best part is that even though the code is upgradable, it still retains the flexibility and customizability that T2 eBusiness solutions have come to be known for.  Now you can have your cake and eat it too.

Personally, I’m extremely excited about what this means from a product perspective because now all of our parking customers, whether municipalities, universities or private parking operators, really are working together for a better and better eBusiness that they can all share.  I’ve been lucky enough to see this in action with the new Privileged Parker Application or PPA.  One customer came to us with an idea which we added as a product to eBusiness as the PPA.  When other customers saw this new idea, they built upon it with their own requirements and now we have a useful little product with great potential.  Now, customers who are on an upgradeable version of eBusiness can all use this new functionality that improves as each customer uses it and adds their own special needs and options.  We really are ‘All Together Now’ and sailing the same ship.