Have you ever come back to your car greeted with the little yellow envelope on your window? Confused, you look around, trying to figure out why you got a parking ticket. Did you park in staff parking or the wrong resident hall lot? Did you forget to put a quarter in the meter? Are you parked in handicapped or 10 minute parking and you just do not see the signs?Mississippi State parking services is hoping the new equipment will help cut down on some of these parking ticket questions.
Director of parking services Mike Harris said the department has begun using a new software program called T2Flex.
Part of the new program includes cameras placed on the current hand-held units used by parking officers.
” [The camera is] basically just an add-on to our units,” Harris said.
Harris said that parking services has one demo unit on hand. The nine units will be fitted with cameras over the summer, and parking officers will begin using them in August.
Currently, officers used the hand-held units to take down vehicle information. This information is downloaded into the computers at parking services and kept on file.
Officers will now still take down information using the units but will also be taking a picture of the vehicle receiving the citation.
“[The camera is] basically to clarify citations and appeals on both sides,” Harris said.
He said the cameras would help verify citations and clear up any grey areas.
“I think it will be a positive thing. This will certainly help to answer questions and get to the facts,” Harris said.
Using cameras will hopefully help the appeals court run more smoothly, he said, although with photographic evidence, it may be more difficult for people to win an appeal.
Harris said the camera add-on to each unit costs around $550.
The T2Flex program also helps parking services keep vehicle information all in one place and provides a way for online vehicle registration.
“It’s the premier parking industry software. Technology is something that we as a university need to embrace in any way we can,” Harris said.
Other universities like Texas A&M and Arizona State also use the T2Flex software, Harris said.
“This [online registration] is one less thing to worry about,” Richter said.
Senior parking officer Raleigh Richter said the new software enables all the units to download information to the parking services database all at once instead of one at a time. The new system uses a Web-based database instead of a university database.
Richter said that the older system did not keep all the information together and some information had to be kept manually.
“Our new parking software is more accurate and easier to use. I think it helps cut down on citation errors because of the technology that it has,” he said.
Richter said he thinks that students and faculty will respond well to the use of cameras.
“I think that once they understand that the cameras are there to validate the citation, they will understand. We’re not out to get anyone,” Richter said.
Freshman biological engineering major Alayne White said she questioned the need for cameras.
“It seems very unnecessary. Would it really help the university to spend the money on cameras to prove a few extra tickets a month?” White said.
Freshman animal and dairy science major Kaylee Luttrell said she does not want the university to have a photograph.
“It doesn’t really matter, but I don’t think I want them having a picture of my car,” she said.
Neither Harris nor Richter thinks the cameras will cause an increase or decrease in the amount of parking tickets.
“I don’t think it will affect the number of citations written, but I think it will help in the appeals court,” Richter said.
Harris said parking services issues about 4,000 to 5,000 tickets per month.
“Eighty percent of students park correctly every day. We would hope that everyone would park correctly and not get tickets,” Harris said.