Last week we held our third formal training session. As a membership organization we have made a commitment to providing benefits to our members and this is one way that we do just that. We try to keep the cost of attending low so as to allow our membership and the staff of member organizations to attend. Last weeks session was administered by Kim Jackson, Executive Director of the International Parking Institute, and had an attendance of approximately 25 people. With the help of our sponsors, American Valet and Transcore, we were able to keep the cost of attending down to $50 for our members! I would like to personally thank both of these companies for their continued support. We very much appreciate it.

As I reflect on the progress that we have made as an association I continually think to the small group meetings that were held when we were trying to make the vision of a regional association become a reality. There were many day long meetings filled with discussions regarding the establishment of a SWPA logo, deciding who our target membership base would be, formalizing by-laws, and figuring our how we would get started without having any money to do so. With a little financial assistance from the International Parking Institute, the vision of Patrick Kass, Tony Fox, Linda Riegel, Lance Lunsway, and many others came to reality, and in my opinion we have made great strides in our first 5+ years. Thank you to everyone who has helped us get to where we are and those of you who are helping to take us to the next level.

Lastly, as I previously mentioned, we are a membership organization and have a commitment to providing you with a benefit as members. We rely on your continued feedback to further the association. So, please feel free to contact myself or any other board member, if you have thoughts on how we can better the association, that's what we're here for.

Park 'em well!

Jim

Jim Sayre
President

Bill offers some vets parking privileges

By Jim Sanders, The Sacramento Bee, January 23rd, 2007

SACRAMENTO — New legislation would grant lifetime parking privileges to California veterans who were wounded, held as prisoners, awarded medals for heroism or survived the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The honorees would comprise the first class of nondisabled motorists awarded free parking privileges by the state.

More than 11,600 war heroes potentially could qualify, though an unknown number already own parking placards because of a disability, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Assembly Member Karen Bass, a Los Angeles Democrat who proposed the measure, Assembly Bill 138, considers it a small token of gratitude.

"I'm proud to do it," she said.

Neil Rubenstein, a Culver City resident spearheading the campaign, said military heroes have helped to preserve democratic rights and privileges. "They deserve the respect and admiration of our country and our citizens," he said.

No formal opposition has surfaced, but some people fear the measure will open the door to future requests from other meritorious groups.

A handful of California cities, including Fresno, Culver City and Hawaiian Gardens, already grant parking privileges like those proposed in AB 138, according to Bass' office.

Two Sacramento advocates for the disabled community said AB 138 is not likely to cause major problems.

Southwest Parking Association's 2007 Scholarship Fund
Golf Classic

Please join the SWPA on April 19th, 2007 for this wonderful fundraising event at the Ocotillo Golf Resort in Chandler, Arizona (www.ocotillogolf.com). There will be a shotgun start for this four-person scramble at 7:00am with registration from 6:00am to 6:45am.

Event Costs: Single - $99, Foursome - $375
Event fees include 18 holes of golf with cart, prizes, tee gifts, full use of resort practice facilities, and Burger Bash Lunch Buffet. Prizes include a $10,000 Hole In One contest.

Registration Information: To register please contact Gabe Mendez at (480) 890-2613 or via e-mail at gabe@downtownmesa.com, please register by April 5th, 2007.

Sponsorship Information: If you are interested in being a sponsor for this fundraising event please contact Jim Sayre, President & Sponsorship Co-Chair at (602) 543-3206 or Gabe Mendez, Treasurer & Sponsorship Co-Chair at (480) 890-2613.

Southwest Parking Association's 6th Annual
Conference & Trade Show

Please save the date for the 2007 SWPA Annual Conference -
October 2nd - 4th, 2007 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM

Hotel Information - The online reservation site for the SWPA conference can be found here.

Sponsorship Information - If you are interested in being a sponsor for this event please contact Jim Sayre, President at (602) 543-3206 or Gabe Mendez, Treasurer at (480) 890-2613.

Additional information will be available shortly at www.southwestparking.org.

Campus drivers heeding ticket warnings, PTS says

By Matt Andazola, The Arizona Daily Wildcat, January 18, 2007

The gun Larry Forchione uses almost every day is heavy and loud; if you make a habit of speeding in campus parking garages, you might want to watch out for him.

Of course, the most you'll have to fear is a speeding ticket.

Forchione, an officer with Parking and Transportation Services, uses a camera mounted on a laser gun to catch people exceeding the 15 mph speed limit in garages.

Last semester, PTS handed out 42 citations for moving violations, including speeding and failing to yield, said David Heineking, PTS associate director.

All of those citations came after the beginning of October, Heineking said. Prior to that, campus drivers had a six-week grace period when the department issued 190 warnings but no tickets.

In addition to its new policy of issuing those sorts of tickets, PTS raised the speed limit in parking structures from 5 mph.

Heineking said the drop in violations could be due to drivers paying more attention to enforcement officers who do their job in plain sight.

"When we have the laser out, we don't hide," Heineking said. "We want people to know that we're out there looking."

Forchione said he thought there would be more moving violations than there were.

"I'm just very surprised we haven't had more fender benders," Forchione said.

The laser gun sends out 250 pulses per second, which it uses to track the speed of the vehicle and cause the camera to take a photo, Forchione said.

After taking the photo, Forchione said he uses a hand-held unit, something like an oversized Palm Pilot, to write the ticket, and later uploads the information to the PTS computer system.

From there, PTS sends out tickets based on information from its database and the license plate numbers from the photos.

For violations other than speeding, officers personally observe and record the vehicle's details, then follow the same procedure.

Forchione said enforcement officers from PTS are not supposed to have any face-to-face contact with the people they are citing.

Forchione added that while the vast majority of people who use garages on campus are safe drivers, none of the enforcement officers are overzealous in their pursuit of those who aren't.

Susannah Maurer, an assistant curator in the UA Museum of Art who parks in the Park Avenue Parking Garage, said she doesn't think drivers are that reckless.

Carl Johnson, an undeclared freshman, said because of his own experience, he isn't surprised that PTS would take those steps.

Johnson, who also uses the Park Avenue Parking Garage, said he was rounding a corner when another driver began to pull out and he narrowly missed hitting the other car by slamming on his brakes.

Heineking said PTS will be doing a study of accidents and speeding in the garages this spring to complement the 2006 study that prompted the new regulations.

"I would hope that when people know that there could be some penalties for disobeying the traffic control devices they'll think twice before doing it," Heineking said.

• Revenue Control
  Dispenser tickets – card-in/card-out, in-lane cashier, central
  cashier, pay-on-foot, pay-by-cell…
• Access Control
  Credentials, transponders, manned booths, proximity cards,
  gates and lane equipment …
• Permits
  Application, registration, wait-lists, hangtags, online sales,
  kiosk, decals …
• Metering Devices
  Single-space, multi-space, pay-by-space, pay-and-display,
  in-car meters, mobile LPR …
• Enforcement
  Warnings, tickets, citations, handhelds, appeals, processing,
  scofflaw, boot, tow …
• Money
  Debits, credits, receivables, transfers, collections …
  This is the way it has always been, but the question is: Does
  it have to stay that way?

Why can’t we:
Have one system that pulls together all financial information to help us manage and report on revenue from multiple sources?

Allow our customers to pay for anything related to parking at any of our physical or virtual locations?

Have a complete view into our operation, rather than multiple separate views?

Manage all our spaces in a consistent unified manner? Upgrade one piece without reconfiguring all of the other pieces?

Have one point of contact for questions and maintenance of the pieces?

These are the questions we have asked ourselves for a long time, and the answer has usually been “no,” to the point where we feel foolish asking them.

Some could argue that today’s parking technology has become too complicated. It now requires multiple systems to manage all of the different areas of your parking operation. It is not anyone’s fault - just the natural progression of technology. A new technology is available, put in the marketplace and accepted, then suddenly this innovation is a must-have, but unfortunately does not integrate well with your existing technology.

We, large users of parking technology, have asked the market for a simpler and more unified solution for managing our parking technology problems. Unifying disparate systems seems like the next logical step. From the access control perspective, having all of parking, citations, demographics, permits and access history in one database is a major step forward. The next logical step is to add the revenue control component to our existing permit and citation revenue functions.

The Beginning of a Dream Come True

I’ve shared my dream with you, but it’s not just mine. For years, many of us have been dreaming about a system that will help us manage our parking operations the way we want to. That is, until two years ago, when a group of industry colleagues – frustrated with existing solutions and workarounds – decided to make it happen, rather than continue dreaming.

• Seeing and managing all customer activity and information from a single user interface, with no bouncing from one system to another.
• Managing all permits and access cards in one database with no duplication of data or data entry.
• Reporting on all sources of revenue from one system.
• Collecting ISF as part of overall invoicing and collection process, together with permits, citations, etc.
• Taking payment for any parking item at any outlet – ISF at the office or online; citations at the pay station in a garage, all online, etc.
• Unified inventory and management of all parking spaces, audited or access/revenue-controlled.
• Unified management of all waiting lists.
• Single point of online access to everything parking for our customers.
• Unified reporting and business-process configuration and tracking.
• Single organization for software support and consolidated training for software users. While we were developing a new system, we decided to add wish-list features to the revenue control system, such as:
• No more forms. All data requirements are entered into the cashier station and stored in the database for reporting, letter and invoice generation. Lost ticket information and ISF transactions are all handled in the system.
• Customized transaction-processing requirements. For each transaction type, you can select the processing requirements you want and don’t want – including customer information, customer history, supervisor approval, dual entry, reference fields and more. All of the information captured by these processing options is stored in the database and available for reports, customer letters and invoices.
• Configurable thresholds for transaction types and permit activity. Let’s say that your permit holder forgets his permit, enters with a ticket, and wants to exit without paying. You can set a threshold that allows this to happen up to a specified limit. For example, you can set a threshold that allows a permit parker to exit free with a ticket one time a month. Once the threshold is exceeded, the permit parker must pay to exit.
• Cashier performance trend reports – this replaces the Excel spreadsheets manually created to audit exception transaction and other high-risk activity.
• Easily configurable cashier stations with programmable hot keys, an unlimited number of validation accounts or miscellaneous fees, and replacement ticket functionality.
• Global functionality or for individual units from any computer with Internet access.

We have many more ideas to add to the unified system, and this is an incredible start to making the dream a reality. Come join us in this great adventure!

The University relied on the expertise of T2 systems in designing its systems.

Peter Lange is Associate Director of Transportation Services, Texas A&M University. He can be reached at plange@tamu.edu.