P
arking management is integral to transport planning and campus management. Two key influences come into play - identifying and managing the needs of legitimate users and managing unauthorised use. Legitimate users require access to facilities but the demand needs to encourage sustainable use taking account of the geographic distribution of users and mindful of co2 emissions and other sustainability measures. The needs of part time and full time users and visitors all need to be balanced. Where charging is in place regular users will most likely want mechanisms for paying monthly, annually or by salary deduction. A strong permit policy twinned with proportionate enforcement is an effective way to balance diverse needs. However local control is critical so that any cost implication to users is not about revenue generation alone but encouraging good parking behaviour and reducing unnecessary traffic. Workflow Dynamics Limited offers support services to allow campuses to manage their parking resource without the costs it traditionally attracts. The WDL solution combines access to web enabled software with delivery of support services. What’s more, the services are delivered on a transactional pricing model so there are no capital costs, charging is proportionate to level of activity, and the setting of parking fines levels is independent from delivery of the process. Workflow Dynamics Limited developed out of The Parking Shop Limited as a separate operation in 2010. The Parking Shop has worked with the HE sector for almost twenty years providing products and services to support their parking operations. In 2006 the company was closely involved with University of Sunderland when they introduced paid parking together with a permit system for staff and students. The company developed a solution for digitally printing and mailing permits direct to applicants, reducing the administrative
workload on the university’s own team. WDL began working with Canterbury Christ Church University in 2010. The University’s primary campus is in the historic heart of Canterbury. However the University also has 3 others sites around Kent. The introduction of charging allied to permits meant a series of additional responsibilities for university staff management of the application process, establishing a permit data base and managing data capture together with the print and distribution of permits to staff and students. In conjunction with this was the introduction of enforcement to allow unauthorised users to be identified and charged. WDL implemented a web enabled software solution and processes to reflect how Canterbury Christ Church wanted the service to operate. The University handles manual applications for permits and validates the applicant before passing this to WDL who data capture the user details. The company then digitally prints the permits onto secure base stock and mails them direct to the applicant. The enforcement module was set up to reflect the university’s contravention codes and each of the four sites. Part of the configuration allows rules to be established around which contraventions attract warning notices for first and
second contraventions. Handheld computers are used by the university’s own security team to manage contraventions. When a vehicle is found in contravention a combination of user type, contravention type and number of previous contraventions determines whether a Warning Notice or a Parking Charge Notice is issued. If a Parking Charge Notice is issued WDL manage the progression of the notice through a series of pre-defined stages. This includes accessing DVLA for details about the Registered Keeper for tickets that remain unpaid after 28 days, handling appeals and printing and mailing chase letters and appeal responses. WDL’s solution offered some key benefits to another major university in the north of England. In 2011 the university faced a number of challenges related to traffic and parking management. The campus - in a semi rural location - attracts around 24,000 students and employs around 3,000 staff, a large number of whom arrive by road. The University had a planning application pending, a part of which involved creating a new junction from the highway and a new access road. Demonstrating a robust traffic management policy was a key part of the local authority’s stipulations. At the time around 18000 parking permits were in circulation involving significant g
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