It has been a long time since I was on the other side of the bullet proof glass window at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Parking and Transit desk. I kid you not - both about it being a long time and about the glass! The University has since softened their look with a more welcoming window area, but to put it simply, there were days that I loved having that window in front of me.
Working in parking was no picnic. Particularly when I was responsible for parking appeals. I had freshmen cry, grown women yell, and even, one time, a man try and kick in our door. As I said, working in parking is no picnic.
It is critical that those in supervisor roles in parking do what they can to motivate their employees and improve their professional experience.
Last week at our User Group conference in Indianapolis, I sat with a group of parking operation managers and supervisors discussing this very topic. This thoughtful and staff-focused group came up with a number of suggestions for others in the room to take back to their organizations. Some of those ideas are:
1. For a smaller office, bring in breakfast once a week.
2. Motivate employees with a foot out the door to retirement by asking for their help in strategic projects.
3. Provide reward systems.
4. Have staff meetings where all can voice their ideas, then show how you intend to use those ideas.
5. Try an "employee of the month" program or something similarly celebratory.
6. Good marketing for a parking organization will translate to a better working environment for the staff. Get your policies out there: be an ambassador, not a dictator, of parking; provide good signage; offer real customer service (such as assisting in dorm move-in at Universities).
7. Provide role play opportunities to help staff work through challenging situations.
8. Training! Yep, it is that simple. Offer as many training opportunities you can to help them enhance their professional skills. Also, every employee should be confident in how to use their Parking System Software.
9. Have a career path. This is easier said than done in some state-run organizations where there are a lot of limitations on how employees can be financially compensated or promoted. If you are in one of these types of organizations, find other ways to allow for "promotion" of your employees.
10. It should be EASY for all employees to do their job. Have specific goals, clear guidelines, and provide as much support as you can!
Like I said. It is not easy working in parking. Make sure that your employees have what they need to do their jobs well and feel confident doing it!
Wow! What an awesome week. I really enjoyed seeing many of you, our customers, at UserGroup - those that I haven't seen in a while, those that I had only previously talked to on the phone, and all the first-time attendees who I hadn't had the opportunity to meet before Training Camp. I know it was a great opportunity for you to learn all those things that Flex can do to make your life easier, save a little time and keep you out of trouble...but User Group was a great opportunity for me, too. I got to learn about your operations - how you are using Flex for your parking permit management (especially as it relates to inventory control), how you are using Flex for your total parking revenue control system, and how you are using the Flex to track your carpool and vanpool participants. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the training table to say "hi" or chat about a challenge.
Remember to take advantage of everything T2 has to offer to make sure you are getting the most out of your parking system software - the free release training, Flex On-line Help, the T2 Listserv and everything you learned in the Training Camp classrooms. But most importantly, lean on all the contacts you made this week. The people who are already using the parking solution you are considering are an invaluable resource.
I'm off to climb some stairs to work off all that good food we ate all week. Hope to see you all next year in Orlando for another event-filled parking adventure!
If you've seen my previous posts (and I'm all but certain you've been waiting for my next one with baited breath, dear reader) you'll know that I'm the lead Analyst for our Hosting Environment. I play with servers, networking gear, enterprise storage, security systems, compliance, firewalls, and complicated software. I like blinking lights on equipment, play way too much video games, stood in line for every midnight showing of Star Wars, and have seen every episode of Star Trek (yes, all different flavors) at least twice. I'm a geek to the core.
And last week, T2 let me go mingle and talk to customers. Can you beleive that? Based on my stereotype, they should have me somewhere hidden in the back corners of the office, occasionally feeding me mountain dew and pizza..
I kid, I kid though - this was my fourth User Group, and every year they just keep getting better. I have the privlege of meeting up with the customers that use the solutions my team hosts and strives to keep available 24/7. Every piece of network gear, every new blinking light or state of the art server - and every report I fill out in the name of compliance - all has a face behind it. At User Group, I get to do what few geeks really get to do in their lifetime with a company - meet, mingle, and drink good beer with the customers that utilize the stuff I live and breathe.
It's a fascinating prospect, really - when you think of it - geek meets customer. Customer meets geek. Customer doesn't run away. Geek leaves User Group even more amped up to do his best to push the envelope of service in T2's Hosting Product. Seriously, though, it was great meeting new people, and shaking hands and exchanging a beer with the familiar faces of our wonderful customers was great.
Until next year - I'll stay geeky - you keep the world parking. Things work well that way.
- Grant
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend Training Camp, T2's annual User Group Conference, in Indianapolis! In attendance at Training Camp this year were players from across the United States. I had the pleasure of meeting customers from California to Vermont, Wisconsin to Texas, and just about everywhere else in between. We even had a customer or two attend from as far away as Alaska.
All of these players came to Training Camp to learn more about T2 Flex, network with their peers in the industry and have plenty of fun along the way.
As I sat in on the different training sessions each day, I was astounded by the knowledge transfer that was taking place in front of me. The T2 employees provided all kinds of useful information about the different functionality inside T2 Flex. Topics ranged from Parking Citation Collections to Campus Parking Solutions, Handheld Ticket Writers, and Parking Permit Management. Customers would often make comments like, "Wow! I did not know you could do that in Flex!" or "I can't wait to get back to show my employees these new tricks in Flex!"
In the sessions, I also noticed how customers would take the time to help each other. Many times, a customer would present a problem they had at their specific college, municipality, university, city etc., and another customer in the room would have an answer to their problem. Questions were resolved, best practices were shared, and connections were made in a matter of seconds. I can't count how many times I saw things like this happen at User Group.
Finally, after spending long days learning about T2 Flex and networking with their peers, our customers got to have some fun. At the customer party, they got to try out their passing skills, shooting abilities, and bowling prowess while supporting the Special Olympics of Indiana and hanging out with T2 staff and customers. Oh, and there were a few thirst-quenching beverages for all of our hard work throughout the week, of course!
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.
So, I've been with T2 Systems for 12 days now. I've jumped in feet first, and the water is great, folks!
I spent my second week at the 2011 T2 Systems User Group 'Training Camp' Conference. The event registration and information desk was, at times, the social hot spot. There was no better place to be to hear what people had to say about this conference.
As attendees went to their sessions, I took some notes on what people were sharing with me. I wanted to know, "What's all the buzz about this conference?". After 4 long days of informative sessions, social gatherings, celebrations, training, and networking, it finally "clicked".
The Top 5 Reasons to attend a T2 User Group Conference:
5. Impress your boss. After the conference, return home with cost saving or revenue generating solutions. Most people told me that they learned functionality and solutions that they didn't know prior to the conference.
4. Join the T2 Community. Find out what other organizations are doing and how they use Flex. One of the most amazing things I witnessed as a newcomer to the conference was the camaraderie among all of the T2 customers and staff. [PS- T2 throws a great party!]
3. You don't know what you don't know about parking management software. I must have had over 100 people cross the registration desk telling me "Wow! I had no idea I could do that with Flex [or other services]".
2. Build relationships. Get face-to-face time with account managers, T2 thought leaders and most importantly--industry peers. [also see #4]
1. I overheard a long-term customer say, "You really can't afford not to go".
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!
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!
If you had asked me 6 months ago what my ideal marketing career would include, I can tell you I would never have imagined responding by mentioning parking access and revenue control systems or parking enforcement software. It wasn't on my radar.
After just one day at T2 Systems, I can tell you my answer would include parking payment systems and parking permit software. Who knew the parking management industry and even moreso that a parking software company could be so awesome?!
The culture at T2 Systems is one that will foster my creativity, and the people are great! After all, the whole is the sum of its parts.
You've heard the saying "product of your environment". Metaphorically, I believe our product is a "product of our environment". The flexible culture is the foundation of what has built FLEX. I believe it is our flexibility that sets us apart from competition, with our people and with our product.
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!
Free parking and honor boxes are two of the best ways there are to forgo revenue. And if you're in the business of missed opportunities, then you can go ahead and stop reading. But if you like capitalizing on chances to secure more revenue, check out this
prezi on T2's Free to Fee solution.
It's hosted, automated, and can quickly turn that money pit into a gold mine.
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.
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.
T2 has attracted a $28M equity investment from Pamlico Capital. This new capital will aid us in our efforts to support our customers, provide long-term financial stability, and be the catalyst for continued growth in our industry.
Pamlico chose to invest in T2 because they recognized us as a technology leader in the parking industry – and they recognized that the parking industry is poised for growth and new technology adoption.
Join us in celebrating this exciting occasion!
Did you think I meant green as in dollar bills? Of course parking makes money, anywhere from $25-30 billion a year in the US alone. But that is not what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about the other green - reducing the impact of our every day activities on the environment.
Parking technology makes green by reducing vehicular emissions. How? Here's an example provided by Chuck Reedstrom of Kimley-Horn in a recent presentation: replacing human cashiers with Pay-on-Foot machines in a multi-lane facility, combined with way finding, resulted in close to 70% reduction in vehicular emissions, as there were no more cars idling in line waiting to pay for parking or circling in search of an available space. This is very green.
And in addition, as those with experience operating parking facilities would attest, it may have also made green - dollars that is - by reducing involuntary profit sharing.
I see green all over.
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:
- Egypt: $1.9 million
- Nigeria: $1 million
- 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.
Read more about New York's Parking problem
here.
Google Labs released
Open Spot, an Android application that helps users find open parking spots.
"Open Spot works by letting people who are leaving parking spots share their spots with people who are searching for parking," the search giant says. "Start helping others find parking, and together we'll all save time, save gas, and reduce pollution."
And there is good news if you're the competitive type: the more open spots you mark, the more parking "karma points" you get. I wonder if users will eventually start becoming mayors of their spots on
foursquare.
The problem is, there have been hardly any developments on it since 2010, and a quick look at the discussion board reveals that it never had a large user base. I installed the app on my phone and, sadly, did not find a single open space in Indianapolis. Whether this is because app support has sputtered and died or simply because the user base isn't big enough yet, I'm not sure.
Open source, user-generated parking data is an intriguing and promising notion. Some vendors have similar functionality already, but only for their own systems, and nobody offers such smooth GPS wayfinding capabilities as Google Maps.
Nice try, Google! Better luck next time?
This week I set a new personal record for the ratio of time-in-a-plane to time-on-the-ground. I spent about 9 hours on Tuesday flying to/from Arizona to hang out with the good folks at the Southwest Parking Association for about 5 hours. I landed just in time to hear Liliana Rambo give the keynote address. She talked about her initiatives with High Performing Teams as she works with the three Houston-area airports and her experiences with City Parking Solutions in Miami and Houston.
After a great lunch with a table full of folks from Arizona State University ( a T2 Flex customer that uses our Hosted solution ), I was privileged to have the opportunity to give my presentation "Parking in the Cloud - Practical Benefits of a Hosted Parking Solution".
There are so many good reasons for moving to a hosted Parking Enforcement System or Parking Access and Revenue Control System. Hosting with a good partner provides increased uptime, headache-free access to data, huge cost savings, and much, much more.
But that's all I've got room for here. If you want to hear more, I guess you'll just have to catch me at my next speaking engagement.
Happy parking!
Jim
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 complian
ce 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.
Many mobile apps are designed specifically for parking, bypassing the web altogether.
Several of these apps show the potential to impact parking in the future:
- New Pay-by-Cell (Pay-by-Phone) apps are better than their old text-message counterparts. As an app the pay-by-phone functionality is more streamlined and provides new options to parkers. These options can include choosing a vehicle from an account list, keeping a credit card on file, or identifying a location/zone by GPS position, QR barcode, or NFC tag rather than typing a location code number.
- Various “remember my parking space” apps enable a parker to record the GPS location when parking, including optional attached photos or notes-to-self. Later, when returning to the car you ask the app “where did I park?” The app then responds with a map overlay showing the car, the photo, and the audio clip. Some will also tell you the direction and distance between your current location and your vehicle, and it may even give you step-by-step walking directions!
- Payment apps from Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and a whole host of start-up companies like Obopay and Zong (now owned by PayPal/eBay) are making it easier to one-click-pay for things using a mobile phone app – these things will eventually include parking. The phone provides the ability to protect the transaction with a password (PIN) for more security, and some new phones also support Near Field Communication (NFC) chips (rumored to be on the iPhone 5), further automating the payment process.
- “Parker” is a mobile app that guides parkers to available on-street spaces where Streetline sensors have been installed. The sensors provide feedback to a central server, which in turn “exposes” this data to users of the mobile app.
- Bought one of those newfangled electric vehicles? The Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt, and Ford Focus EV all have available apps to tell you how to find public chargers or – in some cases – how much longer it will take to charge. (Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company, has been heavily marketing these in-vehicle “apps” as avenues to reduce unnecessary fuel usage and exhaust emissions. Of course, hunting for parking spaces is a big source of preventable fuel consumption, and Ford is banking on it, literally!)
This post was adapted from "Tech Trends," Parking,
May 2011, authored by Blake Laufer & Zack Harmeyer of T2 Systems
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