University of Wyoming Utilizes Real-time Enforcement

The University of Wyoming (UW) is a nationally recognized research institution providing its 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students with experienced faculty and world-class facilities. The campus also serves as the hub of cultural, social, and athletic events for the City of Laramie. UW utilizes T2 Flex Unified Parking Management solutions to actively manage real-time enforcement data in the office and in the field, as well as streamline permit management and online payments.

Wyoming is known for its wide-open spaces, but with 14,000 students and 3,000 faculty/staff members sharing less than 5,000 spots—parking on the UW campus remains limited. Their parking facilities are all surface lots spread out over a large area, and physical permits are distributed based on specific lot access and enforced accordingly.

Before T2, the UW parking office managed every one of its 10,000 annual citations by hand. “When someone came in to pay a citation we had to pour through filing cabinets to find the record—it was nearly impossible,” said Elizabeth Whitt, Assistant Manager of Parking and Transit Services. “This not only made working in the parking office difficult, it also created a lot of angry customers.” Permit distribution was also a problem. “During permit season we would have lines out the door, we had to staff our office like crazy, permits would go missing—it was a zoo,” Whitt said.

UW’s parking operation has gone from paper and pen to computer and cloud—they now manage every aspect of their operation via the T2 Flex Unified Parking Management platform. “T2 has made everything easier. Everything we need is at our fingertips,” Whitt said.

Real-time Data Makes a Difference

UW recently implemented real-time communication for their handhelds and is already seeing a significant improvement in enforcement practices. With this enhanced solution, the moment their officers enter a citation in the field, it instantly populates in T2 Flex and is available to pay or appeal online.

“Most customers want to pay their citations right away, but before we had real-time communication citations may not have been uploaded for a couple hours. Customers would log on hoping to pay their citation but it wouldn’t be available... so they would toss it aside and forget about it,” Whitt said. “Now, customers can immediately pay a citation from their mobile device before they even get into their car—improving our revenue and saving us the hassle of tracking down unpaid tickets.”

Whitt explained that the real-time communication has also been beneficial for her front- line staff. “We used to get calls from angry customers who had just received a ticket, but we didn’t have any record of it. Now we immediately have all the information about why the citation was written and can properly handle these complaints,” she said.

eBusiness Makes it Easy

T2 eBusiness gives UW’s customers an online portal to manage all parking transactions, and a parking office administrator can easily manage content on the portal. “The eBusiness Admin Console allows me to easily manage what our customers see online without needing a developer. I can post a notification, add a link to our parking regulations, or really anything I want. I love having that control,” Whitt said.

Selling permits via their eBusiness online portal has relieved a great deal of stress from the UW parking office. “Now that permits are available online, the lines at our parking office during permit season have decreased dramatically, and the process continues to improve each year,” Whitt said.

Distributing faculty and staff permits online has also reduced a significant amount of paperwork. “Faculty and staff used to have to fill out a form to authorize parking to take out money for the permit from their paycheck. Now it’s a simple click of a box in our online solution, and this keeps everyone happy,” Whitt said.

Think Technology. Think Solutions. Think T2.

Since 1994, T2 Systems has delivered proven parking solutions that meet the ever-changing needs of the parking industry, and this commitment shows−in T2’s quality of products and services, thought leadership and strong customer service relationships. With its broad range of software, hardware, management and technology services, T2 Systems is trusted by nearly 400 organizations in the US and Canada including universities, cities, towns, private operators, and airports.