Parking Permit Management

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!

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!

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!

I was the lucky T2 Systems representative today at a ribbon-cutting ceremony that marked the launch of new pay-by-phone services in the City of Houston, Texas.  And by lucky - I do mean that! It was a pleasure to meet so many great people - our great customers at the city, our great Parkmobile partners, and Houston Mayor Annise Parker.

For those cities and municipalities out there that may be looking to upgrade and improve your parking solution and your parking management, Houston is an excellent example to look to.  A T2 customer for a little over two years, Houston uses the T2 parking enforcement (parking citation) and parking permit management solution.  However, the city understands that in order to get more people to its thriving - and beautfiul - downtown area, they need to make parking easy and convenient. 

Now drivers can pay for parking through their cell phone.  During my very short comments at the event today, I mentioned how our mobile phones are so much a part of our lives; we surf the net, we check e-mail, and we make purchases.  Why not use them to pay for parking?  The City of Houston - and many other cities - have embraced this technology whole-heartedly, and their constituents are better off for it.

But this solution doesn't just make life easy for customers - it makes life a little easier for the enforcement officers, too! Information about the status of the parking meters is sent to their T2 handheld ticket writers in real-time, making enforcement officers more efficient and reducing errors.  It's a great, integrated parking enforcement system that benefits the parking operation and the city's constituents.

Occasionally I still find it funny that I work in parking.  The parking industry is something we sometimes take for granted, but it was great to see that my colleagues and my great customers in Houston - as well as city officials - understand the importance of how parking, when managed properly, can make a night out, a shopping visit, or a walk downtown not only hassle-free, but super convenient, too. 

Great job Houston and Parkmobile!

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.

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.

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.”

Over the holidays, I piled the family into the car and took about a 350 mile trip to take in a hockey game and some museums. It’s something we’d like to do every year, but it turns out to be about every third year we get to do it. So we’re in a town we’re not entirely familiar with, and need a place to park for the game. We find a likely garage, and I watch as cars are turning wide into the next lane in order to make the 90 degree turn into the entrance. One car stops, puts it in reverse to get a better angle, and nearly backs into the car in front of us. I make the wide turn, get into the lane and try to pay the attendant.

“You pay at the office” is what I hear as he waves me on.

Even for someone in the parking industry that statement left me confused. Questions run through my mind, “Where is the office, do I buy a permit and display it, or can I just pay on the way out?” Well, I’ll find a place to park, follow the crowd and figure it out from there. So we follow the crowd to the elevator, and there are several people standing around. I’m staring at the unlit “down” button for a few seconds, and I can’t stand it anymore, I have to press it. I do, nothing happens and I hear a few snickers from the crowd, and a “Yeah, I tried that too.” The crowd starts to disperse toward the staircase, we follow in step.

The stairs lead out to the street, where we have to cross the incoming cars trying to wiggle into the entrance lane. From there, we see the “office” – a glassed in area with a couple of Pay on Foot machines. I pay for my parking, get a ticket and wonder “Do I need to display this, or is it my ticket out?” I watch the crowd leave the “office” and head toward the stadium, so I decide it’s my ticket out.

We have a great time at the game, our team won and the stadium is incredible. We return to the staircase that we took down, and realize there is no door handle on the outside. Luckily someone steps out as we are standing there, so I grab the door and we climb the stairs. We wait patiently as the crowd works its way out of the parking garage, watch as a few cars stop and the driver runs to the office to pay for parking while everyone else is waiting. I approach where I expect to insert my ticket, and there is an attendant there, taking the tickets and pressing the gate open button. I pull out, and immediately curb a tire on the way out. What a great day to be working in parking. There has to be a better way!

I came away from T2 Systems User Group 2010 with Becca White’s challenge in mind: take something home and take action. The energy and information sharing at T2’s User Group is always exciting. Previous years as a PowerPark customer, I often felt a little “left out” because I couldn’t learn much more or contribute to the “new” Flex users. This user group was one of the most beneficial for me and our organization than any before. It wasn’t all Becca’s challenge that inspired me to bring something home, but it certainly helped to boost my confidence as a lone attendee from our organization.

I came home and suggested, rather strongly, that we needed to implement the waitlist process in Flex. We have talked about waitlists for years, but there was always some reluctance to change and the promise that we would consider it later. I knew that Flex could meet our needs and the time was right to just jump in!

Waitlists were to replace what we called “Wednesday Permit Sales” that had been used in this office since before my time in Parking. The process went like this with online permit sales:

·         I would have to disable all student sales late on Tuesday afternoon.

·         The manager would give me the numbers of what permits would be available and to whom.

·         I had to check the control groups to be sure the right subclasses were included (since that often would change)

·         Allocate the appropriate number of permits (after being sure that there were hangtags available to accommodate the number to be released)

·         Our code made the permit sales available at midnight on Wednesday’s date.

·         Needless to say, the first couple of weeks when we would release more “prime permits,” we would literally have a couple of hundred students waiting up until midnight and hitting the site concurrently trying for that “25” or “20” or whatever number of permits. Lots of unhappy people, ones who didn’t get what they wanted, emailing us the next day, calling to ask when would more be available, etc. Also, the hundred or so who purchased all hit the office the next day to pick up the new permit (since classes were already in session, we required pick up). It was a cumbersome process to explain to students. Waitlist could solve these issues.  

I volunteered to take on the responsibility of a manual implementation: direct students to a page on our Web site with details about the “New Waitlist Process for spring 2011. “ They sent an email to our office with a “Waitlist request for XX” subject line. (It was some consolation that we would be able to address any ‘exceptions/issues’ on an individual basis by managing it manually). All I could think about over the holiday break when we were closed (our office is not an essential function on campus during breaks :-) were the hundreds of waitlist requests and emails that would be streaming in…I never voiced that anxiety but was confident it would all be done and it was going to work. The long term gain was well worth my short term stress/anxiety level!

I was pleasantly surprised that we only averaged about 50+ emails at the peak of requests. It was easily managed, they were added to the appropriate list and a reply email was sent in Flex to acknowledge they had been added. I had to create some subclasses and still change the control group to allow those awarded the right to purchase to buy online, but it has gone very well! We have awarded rights to purchase and sold over 200 permits, but it has been spread out over 2 weeks. It has evened out the traffic in the office. Phone calls have been almost non-existent since the third day of class. Less stress overall for the students and the office. Whew! It has been busy making it all come together, but it is a success and I look forward to the smooth transition to offering the waitlist option online for fall 2011! What a huge improvement for everyone involved!

Next project…Event management enhancements! I look forward to the new “what can Flex do for me now” session at UG! Thank you, Becca, for reminding everyone about how truly valuable the UG experience is (but I really did already know that! :-). I hope to see ya’ll in Indy, November 8-10!

I just returned from my first on-site customer consulting engagement since joining T2 Systems. I met with Jennifer, Dianne, Dennis, Kevin and many of the staff members at Western Kentucky University to discuss how they are using T2 Flex, what we could streamline and what current functionality is available but not being used. It was an enlightening experience for all involved, including me. Before my arrival they provided me with a list of processes they wanted to review prioritized by “It’s broken and we need to fix it”, “It works but can we make it better”, a “wish list” of things they were not doing in Flex but would like to be, and “Best Practices” – how is everyone else doing it.

I was extremely impressed by the integrity of their database. They run daily queries and reports to connect permits, vehicles, citations and customer records. No stone is left unturned when it comes to matching responsible customers to charges and they use all resources available to them including RoVR, student records, payroll records and appeals filed. 

During my two day visit I was able to observe the day-to-day activities and challenges and talk with staff who had carved time out specifically to review business practices. We found ways to prioritize wait lists using custom fields which will allow them to more fully take advantage of this feature in T2 Flex. We identified the difference between a pre-paid citation and a pre-entered citation which will allow WKU to accomplish the intent of getting the boot information in Flex without causing errors when the handheld ticket writer downloads the same citation but also without attaching a financial transaction when no payments have been collected. We also identified records that could be marked historical to save on screen real estate and processing resources which in turn save time. And what trip to a Parking Office is complete without the sharing of Appeals? Just as I remember – you can’t impound my car, I’m tenured faculty; I had to park close to the door because I had to go to the bathroom (yes, I cleaned it up a little for this blog); and I’m doing my part by riding a bike, you shouldn’t charge me for chaining it to the handrail.

While I was able to use my 12 years experience in the parking business and with the T2 products to offer suggestions, they challenged me with “How can we do this better?” at every turn. A lot has changed in the product since they implemented in 2005 and like most of you; business as usual has prohibited WKU from reassessing the capabilities provided by Flex.

If your department is interested in an in-depth review of your current business practices incorporating any changes since your implementation and suggestions to improve efficiency, contact your Account Manager or the Training Department at T2 Systems. So…on to my report for WKU.

Hello!

Since many of you are smack dab in the middle of permit season, I thought it would be approporiate to re-post something our own Maggie Vercoe, Director of Client Engagement wrote last year:

We are in the thick of Parking Permit Season!  It requires capitalization because of the sheer craziness of it.  Universities especially across the country are bracing themselves for the onslaught of students, staff, faculty, etc to hit their offices and their web pages to get their prime parking permits.

If you are just reading this, and haven't begun your planning, you might be in trouble.  Grab the bottle of Jack and hide under your desk until it blows over.

In seriousness, there are a lot of things that you can do to get through the season with little pain. 

1. Plan, Plan, and Plan.  Run reports over the last year in this date range to see what sales you did, by customer type, by permit location, permit type, and location of purchase.  This will help you to plan your communications to your customer.  For example, if you had more purchases in your office than online, now is the time to communicate to your customers what a great web page you have and how easy it is to purchase a parking permit online!

2. Map it out!  Consider laying out all of your parking permit configuration in a spreadsheet, for example.  This will help you identify all of your pricing structures, rules around your permits, and keep you organized.  It will make configuring them in your database easier every year if you maintain the copy.

3. Plan out what the week will look like.  Staff accordingly.  If possible, over-staff.  There could be lines out the door.  It may be useful to have someone handing out materials while you wait.  Rutgers University used to have a tent set up to shield the heat and cold beverages while people waited.  If you have to allow people to purchase in your office, this is fantastic customer service for a Department that is not always so liked by its customers!

4. If you do online parking permit sales, make sure that you have tested out everything with your new rules, permits, and pricing in a test environment.  This includes test transactions through to your payment gateway and file transfers to payroll or the bursar.  If any of your rules or software has changed, testing is key! 

These are just a handful of tips.  Make sure you plan early and involve all of your key players.  Good luck!