Parking Lot Software

My first BLOG entry, woohoo! I actually like the word BLOG.  Of course, being a data programmer, I had to find out what BLOG means (I mean separate from the obvious of original "Web Log" definition).

So I searched (NOTE: I do not "google" anything, it's called searching and I refuse to use that term, or for that matter use Google.  I use Yahoo - besides it just sounds like more fun ... YAHOO)

BLOG Web Log Internet
BLOG Better Listings On Google
BLOG Bears Little Organizer GUI
BLOG Boring Lump Of Garbage
BLOG Based Loosely On Groupware
BLOG Boring Lesson On Galaxy
BLOG Biological Links On the Globe

I like the Boring Lump of Garbage one. Cute.  I digress. 

I work for a company that writes parking lot software. I enjoy what I do--I enjoy doing the detective work and finding ways to force data from old systems into our newest T2 Flex system. I know many people would think I am crazy, it is tedious and it can be exhausting.  But at the same time, it is also challenging and puzzling.

At times, I really have to be a detective.  Trying to figure out what the customer needs and how our parking solution will fit their style is rewarding...and they're all so different! For example, cities usually need more citation management and boot/tow capability. Along with that, they need an appeals system. And of course, they need to take payments and report on people and vehicles. Colleges need to have permit solutions and a way to get the students information, give them a permit, and take that payment. Another common need of higher education parking systems is a way to put permit holders on a payment plan for the accademic year, or to take it out of a student account at the bursar.  Parking garages need to have lots and facility management along with the ability to park the customers (and know how many spaces they might still have left), manage events that would use the garages, and allow secure credit card payments. 

Now I get to Blog about it, this should be a lot of fun!

This was a busy morning for my team. Mark was up a bit before midnight to do security updates in the PCI environment. Scot was up at 4:30 moving customers to newer, faster servers running the latest version of Oracle. I met Grant at the Hosting Facility at 6:30 to install a new server, decommission two older ones, and to meet the EMC engineer to install more drives in the SAN.

It was a busy morning, but we don't mind. That's what we do. We want our customers to be able to focus on managing their hosted PARCS solution and running their parking operations, not have their servers compete for attention. So if early mornings make our sophisticated parking software perform just a little bit better, if they make parking management just a little easier, it is all well worth it.

Happy parking.

Jim

So those of you who know me know that I describe myself as a "technology nerd who fell into the world of parking".

How nerdy?  I got my first e-mail address in 1986 (yes, back when legwarmers were cool but being a nerd was not).  In 1992 I had a pair of ISDN connections in my house for a bountiful-at-the-time 128Kbps bandwidth, and I registered my first domain name and website in 1995 when Netscape launched the web revolution.

Ahhhh, it was the Internet’s halcyon days… when “spam” was still a luncheon meat, a “virus” was something that infected only living beings, and a “banner ad” was flown behind an airplane.

The Internet has evolved at a frantic pace - and continues to do so.  But nobody would quesiton that the hot Internet activity for much of the last decade has been the spectacular rise of social media – basically the generation of content created by the masses, distributed in a highly accessible and scalable way.  Two of the most popular social media sites today are Facebook and Twitter, of course.

Is there a Facebook/Twitter angle to parking technology?  Does social media even have a role in parking?

Well, at its core the business of Parking is really a business built on organizing the behavior of people.  Contrary to popular belief, parking is not about vehicles or parking spaces.  Parking services are all about people – specifically people who park.

Providing parkers with the right information at the right time is the key to encouraging the behaviors that you want them to demonstrate.  That’s where Facebook and Twitter can help.   Let’s start with Twitter.  This is a free technology that anyone can use to push out short messages to subscribers, very quickly, who can receive these messages though the web or on their phone.

If you’re going to send out such nearly real-time messages to your parking audience – Twitter would call these “tweets” –what messages would you send?

There are most likely two kinds of messages that are invaluable to a parker.  The first type of tweet is an emergency message:  For example:   “Blue Garage - West entrance blocked, use North entrance” or “Snow clearance on Main St 3pm, no parking.”

The second type of tweet that parkers find valuable is real-time information about parking at an event.  In this case the parker would subscribe to a series of tweets (called a “feed”) that was broadcast every few minutes about, say, occupancy at a lot or a garage.  Driving downtown to get to the big game?  Subscribe to a twitter feed for 3 or 4 different parking lots and receive a message every 2 minutes about how many spaces remain available – when you’re a few blocks from downtown you’ll know which garages have spaces available.  When you arrive, you unsubscribe from the feed.  Good information, happy customer, less circling the block.

Facebook, on the other hand, is much more like a traditional website - though it's evolving too.  Many parking operations already have websites, so having a Facebook page for parking might appear redundant.  Facebook provides a mostly structured interface for you to post information, photos, or other media about the parking operation and control the message that you’re putting out.

But the social component comes from the people (parkers) who subscribe to the content of the page by becoming a “friend” of the parking office.   The parking operation can choose which content, or levels of content that a “friend” can see, and can also limit the amount that a “friend” can post or comment to the page.  This gives a great deal of control to the parking operation on how information is distributed, and also provides a convenient mechanism for customer feedback and comments.

Also an interesting tidbit:  Facebook and Twitter can be connected so that Facebook can “push” updates to Twitter, which in turn pushes information to your customers.  Slick!

Are Facebook and Twitter really free?  Well, they’re free to sign up and use as much as you like.  But there is a cost - once your parkers get used to receiving tweets or visiting your page you will have an obligation to provide regular updates.  So there is a cost – not for the service, but for your operation to produce regular content for your subscribing audience.

Does social media play a role in parking?  This probably depends on your specific parking audience – a technically sophisticated parking audience (such as students on campus or frequent airport travelers) will embrace these features.  There are already groups of parkers taking matters into their own hands and using text messages to help each other when it comes to parking (NPA’s Between the Lines newsletter recently described this), so yes, there are signs that social media could be useful and appreciated by your parkers.  A less-technical audience may not be as interested.  But in any case, social media can enhance the parker’s experience, and usage is likely to grow.

On that note, be sure to follow T2 Systems on Twitter and "Like" us on Facebook! :-)

Let's face it: when you think parking, the first thing that jumps to mind is not great service. Very rarely is parking a great experience for us. We rarely score the perfect spot by the exit or by the stairwell. When you need to go back and feed the meter, you often find the ticket writer lurking nearby waiting for your meter to expire. And we are never ready for the cost when the cashier tells us the total when we exit the garage.

What if we encountered a smile on our parking adventures? How would that change your outlook? What if that ticket writer said hello and talked about the weather without circling waiting for your meter to expire. What if the cashier at the exit was engaged and not annoyed that you interrupted their perusal of the National Enquirer? You just might seek out that parking lot the next time you were in the area, and perhaps the experience would be an enjoyable one. 

I'm happy to say that working at T2 puts a smile on my face, and as VP of Support Services, I hope my work does the same for you.

Recently, I got a question from a customer about PCI – one of the many that I answer on a regular basis - and it caused me to pause and think about what PCI means for T2 and our customers. One of the things I'm very proud of about the T2 Systems Hosted Parking Solution is that we're a PCI-DSS Level 1 Service Provider. That said, PCI is a *pain*. It is a really big pain to become a Level 1 Service Provider. It is expensive. It is time-consuming. It is difficult. So why do we do it? So our customers will have Parking Access and Revenue Control systems, parking permit and enforcement systems and eBusiness solutions that require a lot less work on their part to become PCI compliant. We're already hard at work on meeting all of the compliance standards of PCI 2.0. It is better that we do the work once, for all of our Hosted customers, than require that each one go through the process on their own.

Most PARCS solutions are validated to PA DSS 1.x. Like T2, they're working on PCI 2.0. The key difference is that the PCI 2.0 compliant version of T2 Flex comes as part of the customers’ subscription at no additional cost. And the substantial hardware upgrades for the server environment, which can cost tens of thousands, are taken care of by T2 as part of our hosting. And no expensive upgrades to peripheral devices like fee computers are required.

Lower cost and less work are always good.

T2's Hosting Environment includes a dedicated PCI Card Processing environment, and it is T2 that does the upgrade work to the hardware and software as all of the compliance work for PCI. For all of the pain that PCI compliance induces, it is intended to protect merchants and cardholders from many of the modern dangers associated with credit cards.

Security is important. Our focus on security makes it easier for our customers to focus on their parking operations.

It’s funny how normally polite and even-tempered people can become crazy when parking their cars. The same person that will hold the door for you and say a pleasant “Have a nice day!” when passing on the sidewalk will honk, scream, and make obscene gestures if he thinks you stole his parking place. There’s just something about being in a two-ton cage of metal that makes people crazy.

We have a good car and a beater. When I drive the good car, I’m a “Park away from the crowd” kind of guy. A couple of empty spaces around me is my preference, that or give me an end spot and I’ll edge as far away from the next car so they can’t door ding my car. When I’m driving the beater, anything goes, wherever the closest spot is. It’s kind of liberating to drive the beater, I say that I don’t care about it, until the day l I saw a truck scrape my bumper trying to get into a space that was way too small for him. Then you would have thought the car was my baby.   I never did get that scratch fixed.

When I was in college (way back in the 80s), I lived in an apartment complex that never had enough parking. I was definitely driving a beater at the time, as was my best friend. We pulled in to the lot to see a new Camaro parked straddling the line, taking up two spaces. After a quick assessment, we determined that we could squeeze our small cars in on each side of the Camaro, leaving about 3 inches of clearance on each side of it. We were careful to never touch the car, but we certainly didn’t leave him room to open his doors. Later on, we heard a bit of a commotion as the Camaro owner tried to leave. We watched him crawl through the rear hatch and wiggle into the driver’s seat to leave. The next day, the Camaro was parked properly, and about a week later we met the owner and all had a good laugh about it. Now I’d be afraid I’d get shot pulling a stunt like that! 

You used to be able to buy a pad of fake parking tickets from the back of Mad magazine. They looked official enough, starting off with an official looking violation code for taking two spaces or parking poorly. Then as a person read on they found that their punishment was that the fleas of a thousand camels should infest their armpits. I never bought one of these pads, but was tempted a few times, and I’m sure I would have used them had I owned a pad.

I’ve gotten a few stupid tickets in my day too. Parking facing the wrong way on the street. I don’t remember why I parked that way, just did, and left the car there for several days. Parking too far away from the curb. I was parked between two trucks at the curb, and my car was well inside their profiles, but apparently the parking authority had a ruler. My rear tire was beyond 12” from the curb. In Indianapolis about 10 years ago, that was a $20 fine.   When I was about 16 I got a warning for doing donuts in an iced-over parking lot. The officer was actually pretty cool about it, saying he knew nobody was in the lot, but I could have hit a light pole and that would have been a mess.

Now my oldest son is driving so I’m teaching him how to assess a parking lot, who to park next to and who to look out for and to make sure that he’s parked properly, between the lines. I hope he doesn’t do the stupid things I did, but I guess everyone has to grow up. And if he parks poorly, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits.

So your boss has put you in charge of a special project, and it has to be done by a certain date.  Everybody’s counting on you.  “Great,” you think, “I know parking and what we do, but I don’t know anything about Project Management.  What am I getting into?  Why me!?”

Fear not!  Even if you’ve never officially managed a project, you probably know more about project management than you think.  While every project is different, there are several constants in Project Management.

First thing that every project has is a triangle of three items.  Think of the statement “We can provide products that are good, fast and cheap.  You can pick any two.”   If you want it Good and Fast, it won’t be cheap – you’ll have to pay overtime or throw more resources at the project.  If you want it Good and Cheap – well, it won’t be fast.  As people have time to work on it, they’ll get around to it, eventually.  And finally, if you want it Fast and Cheap, it won’t be any good – corners will get cut, etc.  Finding the right balance is the key.

In project management, we use a similar triangle – but we call it Cost, Scope and Schedule.  If any of these sides of the triangle change, there is an effect on the overall quality of the project.  Let’s say your boss has given you a task of painting lines in a parking lot.  The Scope is painting the lines, a budget that covers the cost of the paint, labor, materials, etc, is the Cost, and the Schedule is when it’s supposed to be done.  Now if your boss says “I expect 2 coats of paint” and you were planning on 1, that’s a Scope change.  It’s going to affect both the cost (more paint needed) and the schedule (as it will take longer to paint, and you’ll have to wait for paint to dry in between coats).  Now be forewarned of a truth in Project Management – all good projects include some Scope Creep! 

“Who, or What, is this Scope Creep?”  Here’s where I always have an image of a crazy old guy in a trench-coat, chugging mouth-wash, but that’s not Scope Creep.  Scope Creep is when a customer realizes that they want more than what was originally decided upon.  You’re building a house, and you decide that yes, it would be nice to add a ½ bath off the bonus room.  That’s Scope Creep.  It’s going to require more time, money and effort, and your builder is going to request a change order to cover the costs – and he’s going to charge more for this than had been in the plan all along.  Back to our painting stripes on the parking lot, things look so good your boss wants you to go ahead and paint the gates too.  Maybe you have to adjust the schedule, or maybe you have to hire a temporary worker to help, but at least one of the other two parts of the triangle have to change.

“Okay, I understand the scope, cost and schedule, but how do I get started?”  If somebody else has done a similar project, by all means get their help and learn from them.   Let’s say you are blazing new trails here.  There’s no way we can cover everything related to Project Management in one article, but here’s a start:
 

·        Document the scope of the project.  Write it down and make sure you’re in agreement with your customer (or your boss) of what is included.  In Project Management, a verbal discussion without documentation is a bad thing.  If nothing else, write an email or text message saying “Here’s my understanding of the project.”  If things go bad later on, you have something to fall back on.

·        Document when you can start on the project, when it has to be done, and dates that you can’t be working on it.  If your lot is used for Sunday football parking, you certainly don’t want to try to work on it during a football game!

·        Determine what has to be done and in what order.  If you’re not sure, start a list and list everything you can think of related to the project.  Some items can be done simultaneously, some have to be done in a certain order, some items just have to be done at before the project is complete.  Think about “wait time” – let’s say you’re project’s scope creeped into patching potholes.  You’d have to patch them early in the project and wait for them to set up prior to painting – and this is exactly the kind of thing that causes trouble in meeting a deadline – there’s nothing you can do (realistically) to speed up concrete or paint drying.  Plan ahead!

·        In Project Management we identify the Critical Path.  This is the longest path through the project that defines the minimum amount of time a project can take.  Sounds confusing, but it will make sense.  What’s on the critical path?  The items that have to be done, in order and cannot be done at the same time as something else.  Generally, critical path items cannot be sped up by throwing more resources at them, but, resource limitation may put an item on the critical path that could be sped up if more resources were available.  Let’s say you’re painting the lines and you have to do it by yourself.  The time it takes you to prepare, paint and cleanup are on the critical path to completion.  If you can add a part-time helper, you can “dual-process” during the time you have help and speed things along.  But, let’s say you order the paint today, and it takes two weeks for the order to be approved, shipped and delivered.  There’s likely nothing you can do to speed up that process.  A good test to see if something should be on the critical path is to ask yourself “If this didn’t get started on time, what would the affect be on completion?”

·        Share your timeline with your resources.  In Project Management, we tend to call anyone that works on a project a “resource”.  The best project plan in the world is no good if your resources aren’t aware of their commitment and agree to it.

·        Document deadlines and action items.  People forget things, even those with the best intentions.  It’s better to remind people of upcoming deadlines and commitments than to have them not complete their tasks.  A simple action item list is a great tool – list the person’s name, what their task is, and the due date.  Share it with the entire group throughout the project.  It’s better to over-communicate than to just expect someone to do their part.  If someone fails to meet their deadline, ask them “What’s your recovery plan?”  or, “How do you plan to get this back on schedule?”  Then wait for their answer.  Many times, people will put more of a deadline on themselves than you would have asked for.  If they don’t have an answer, you may have to escalate the situation to a superior, and this is where your documentation is critical.

·        Learn from your mistakes!  Every project has something that could have gone better.  I deal with projects regularly that have more than 100 tasks that have to be done.  Do I truly expect every one of those to go perfectly?  No – but, I do learn to recognize patterns, repeat offenders, etc. and I make adjustments accordingly.

This should get you started on your project.  Clearly there’s no way to cover everything in Project Management in one short article, but this should get you thinking.   If it’s your first project, it’s okay to be nervous and not know what to say to people.  Being prepared with solid data and a plan helps. 

If you have questions or comments, please let us know – I’d be happy to go into further details, answer questions, or give advice.   Thanks for reading!