Is Parking Unique at Universities? These U of T Directors say Yes
By Jeri Baker At the University of Texas at Austin, indus-
try veterans Bob Harkins is Associate VP for Campus Safety and Security and Bobby Stone is Director of Parking and Transportation Services. Parking Today asked them to share some thoughts on what is “unique” about university campus parking. Their comments were gathered and reported by Jeri Baker, an Assistant Director of UT Austin’s Parking and Transportation Services department. Here’s what they had to say. Editor.
Does understanding parking today on a university campus require years of
research and a post-doctorate degree in finance? Abit tongue-in-cheek, but university park-
ing can be confusing if you do not understand a few basic rules for the environment. First, most university parking systems are self-funded. Here in Texas, state law requires state universi- ties to have fully self-funded parking operations. For example, Parking and Transportation
Services (PTS) is a fully self-funded auxiliary department of UT Austin, and is tasked with generating the funds needed to provide, main- tain and regulate parking on campus.Without any of the tax base given to the university system or any student tuition or fees for parking, we have to capture as much revenue as possible from our 15,000 parking spaces. Based on our state-mandated structure, we have no choice but to charge those who use our services, and by charging
Although the average age of our primary customer base is young and inexperienced, they are more technologically advanced than previous generations.
everyone, including faculty, staff, students, contractors, ven- dors and visitors, we keep the cost down for all. By minimizing expenses and setting prices based on cost-recovery, we operate like a nonprofit, providing service at the lowest prices.
Using your communication degree to reach your customers! You cannot have just one form of communication these days
or you will miss a segment of your audience. Using technology, we are able to reach out to all of our target audiences. Although
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the average age of our primary customer base is young and inex- perienced, they are more technologically advanced than previ- ous generations. It’s a big challenge for the university community to keep up
with communication gadgets, to ensure communication is fresh and current, and to reach out to a diverse customer base ranging from faculty, staff, and students to community members in the surrounding area. Using social media such as Twitter and Facebook and group
texting, as well as more traditional forms of communication – such as informational emails, closed-circuit TV spots, website information and print media – we attempt to reach out to the wide and diverse customer base utilizing parking at UT Austin.
Using your education degree to inform your customers! To keep parking prices down for everyone, we need to look
for new ways to use our resources. In many cases, that means using the space one way during the normal operations of the uni- versity – capturing permit revenue – and a totally different way in the evenings and on weekends by collecting event and visitor parking revenue. Keep in mind that as the usage of a space becomes more
diversified, the accompanying signage becomes more complicat- ed as well. By capturing as many of the available revenue streams as possible for these spaces and by having everyone who uses the services pay a portion, the university is able to keep the permit and event parking prices down for all faculty, staff, students and visitors who park on campus.
Parking Today
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