On Aug. 15, Parking and Transportation Services (PTS) rolled out a new parking system called “Click and Park.”
Click and Park is intended to make visitor parking at large Tech events more efficient and convenient for everyone.
“Click and Park allows the customer to put parking behind them and concentrate on the event they’re attending. They no longer have to worry about bringing cash or having enough of it. All they have to do is pay for and print their parking passes at home and bring them to campus,” said David Santa Ana, Associate Director for Parking.
Click and Park also provides parking directions, which is meant to decrease both confusion and traffic around campus and the areas close by.
Click and Park is a useful tool for PTS as well.
“It will help make our operations more efficient by speeding up the rate at which we can physically park each customer. Instead of a special events parking attendant stopping each car to accept their cash and give them change as needed, attendants just scan the Click and Park print outs and the customer is on his/her way,” Santa Ana said.
PTS is also excited about the idea of a cashless service.
“It also makes our special events operations virtually cashless, which aids in our reporting and reduces actual cash handling,” Santa Ana said.
PTS hopes to expand Click and Park to more events in the future in order to ease the parking experience across campus
“Currently, we’re using the program just for football. Eventually, we’ll utilize it for other types of special events like swim meets or concerts,” said Torise Battle Young, Communications Officer at PTS.
Tech is using a vendor, Standard Parking Plus, to implement the new parking system. The technology is already used across the country for different purposes, and has received positive reviews from users on both ends.
“[Standard Parking Plus] employed this technology at several universities, stadiums and concert venues, which all gave great reviews of the system. Considering the growing number of special events taking place on our campus, we thought Click and Park would be an innovative and efficient tool for Tech,” Santa Ana said.
Click and Park gameday parking was available for the first home game against Elon and is already available for the UNC game.