New Tech, Lessons Learned

By Victor A. Hill, CAPP, MPA

T

HREE YEARS AFTER DEPLOYING license plate recognition (LPR), the

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL) is reaping its benefits. Our customers are more satisfied than ever, we sell more permits than we did before implementation, we write better citations, and we reinvest the additional revenue in enhanced services and technologies. We even reduced our permit fees.

If I shared that last comment at a party, this would be the moment everyone stops talking.

You read it right. Reducing our fees was the most unexpected—and welcome—benefit of LPR. As an auxiliary department at a state university, we’re self-funded by user fees, and our goal is to maintain our level of service.

LPR enabled us to enhance services while keeping costs down for our most important customers: students and employees. If you’ve suddenly become skeptical, stick with me. I’ll cover your questions about pricing and capacity soon enough. If you’re still not convinced after you finish reading, let’s talk.

The secret to a successful LPR operation isn’t the technology, but in how it becomes the center of an operation and, if properly deployed, makes everything work in relative harmony while bolstering an operation’s foundation for the future.

The Background

First, a recap: We purchased LPR in the summer of 2016 and began using it within the first few weeks of its installation as a mobile solution. We do not use fixed LPR yet. We have one full-time officer who works

Monday through Friday and student officers who work after-hours and weekends. We didn’t formally introduce LPR to campus until the 2017 academic year because we wanted to ensure it worked the way we needed it to.

Printed permits remained in use to help reconcile bad data and catch potential fraud. All of our lots are assigned and are split between commuters and residents.

Commuter lots accommodate annual, semester, hourly, daily, and event parking. Commuter lots are oversold while resident lots are sold to capacity.

LPR’s Central Role

Reassurances from vendors, case studies, and articles are great references, but they don’t provide the specific context for your operation. Every organization has unique needs. Placing LPR at the center of an operation is key regardless of whether an operation runs LPR in a mobile, fixed, or combination environment, because it touches everything.

UWL’s parking and transportation services staff—all four of us—met to discuss a deployment strategy shortly after we placed our LPR order. I opened the meeting by drawing a circle on our board and writing “LPR” inside

New Tech,

Lessons

The University of WisconsinLa Crosse implemented license plate recognition three years ago.

Here’s what’s happened since.

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UWL Parking and Transportation Services created a video to explain LPR to its students, faculty, staff, and visitors. Watch it at bit.ly/uwllpr.

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it. Several more circles encapsulated other aspects of parking, all branching out of LPR like spokes on a wheel. We then brainstormed about how LPR would affect each spoke of the operation.

LPR is often sold on the premise that permit and citation revenue will increase, but it’s important to remember that it adds costs for maintenance and additional integrations with parking software and hardware. Knowing these costs helps provide a better foundation for future budgets; the promise of additional revenue may offer opportunities for more service improvements. Hardware revisions may be required—pay stations with alphanumeric keypads, for example. Enforcement tactics may change, and, in our case, staffing changed based on the efficiencies LPR provided. We cut the number of student officers and adjusted their hours around our full-time officer’s patrol patterns.

Customers need to understand LPR, so policies and educational messages require revisions. We created

we shut down the secondary market for permit sales, mostly made up of students who left the university after the fall semester. Customers occasionally bring unregistered vehicles to campus, and we used the printed permits to add those vehicles to accounts with valid permits after verifying the registered owners.

This made it easier for customers to sign up for a permit in the next second year of LPR operations.

Our data quickly confirmed we were selling ourselves short—underselling lots, that is. LPR occupancy data showed that lots were rarely at full capacity with exceptions during class changes and at peak times between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The data enabled us to oversell lots by 10 to 30 percent more than we had in previous years, even lots we didn’t realize we could oversell. Qualitative observations are valuable, but LPR gave us the quantitative data we needed to show it could be done and to predict trends for future budgeting. Events, hourly, and daily parking affect this volume, but the LPR data helps us identify other options for customers if their lots are full.

Permit revenue increased each year, as did hourly, daily, and event parking revenues, with a range between 10 and 25 percent depending on the category. Updated pay stations and pay-by-phone solutions opened new opportunities for visitor parking. Better data from these integrations resulted in more consistent pricing and enforcement, which bolstered revenue.

While LPR was the primary drivLPR cameras accurately read a plate half covered in snow. The photo shows the officer’s view through the LPR software. ing force, it prompted additional videos for our website and began talking about LPR before it was officially introduced to campus. The advance buzz saved staff time and created goodwill before we eliminated printed permits. Finally, we knew our signs needed a facelift. Fortunately, UWL was in the midst of an overhaul of its signs so we had license to make a fresh start.

Harnessing the Data Potential

LPR’s true value is in its data and how it’s harnessed to improve services. We spent the first unofficial year of deployment focused on taking control of data. The legacy of our printed permits is that they helped us update our customer database and all but eliminate fraud as

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Read Rates

Is LPR accurate? It’s accurate at UWL, even in bad weather.

Many factors affect accuracy, and focusing on plates you’re most likely to see helps ensure the system is ready for deployment. Most of our license plates are white with black letters. We don’t see too many different states, and we train our officers to watch for special characters and verify reads.

Accuracy averages 95 percent or better and has remained consistent, even in snow. Ice and icy snow on the LPR cameras can affect read rates, along with excessively misty conditions that fog cameras up. We’ve found in those instances that it’s typically not safe to enforce the lots and plan accordingly.

LPR occupancy data showed that lots were rarely at full capacity with exceptions during class changes and at peak times between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

adjustments in other areas of the operation to fortify these revenue streams.

Citations were no different. We initially saw a drop in the number we wrote as we got LPR up and running, but the average increase since deployment is about 30 percent. This makes sense given that we can offer more parking through oversell. The additional volume forced us to take a fresh look at the citations and make revisions. We updated violation categories to reflect the effects of LPR. For example, a citation for improper display became plate unreadable/improperly displayed. The number of repeat offenders dropped as LPR proved we could write better, more defensible citations. We enacted a policy of reaching out to repeat offenders who receive two citations in 24 hours, as these are invariably students. Options are discussed, and the students rarely receive additional violations.

Appellants who contest short-term violations are shown timestamped photos of their vehicles parked past posted 15-minute limits; we also show photos to other violators who aggressively fight citations. Unregistered vehicles are regularly verified and updated if we discover they belong to valid-permit holders. We forgive citations when we can verify a payment was made, typically when license plate characters are transposed by accident. We have voided more citations in the past three years than we did in previous years because it

is easier to verify payments or attempts to pay. In spite of this, citation revenue is up because reductions to citation amounts are rare, as first-time offenders pay the full price for their infractions. Customers appreciate the extra attention and in turn notify us when they have loaner vehicles or purchase new ones. We’re more often asked for permission and less often for forgiveness.

Fraud still occurs when students add their friends’ vehicles to accounts, though at a much less significant rate than before. A weekly report from our software identifies vehicles added to accounts. Staff verifies the vehicles and, if necessary, contacts the student who made the change. Violations for fraud and misuse have become virtually extinct because of LPR. In cases in which students carpool or share a residence, we verify their needs and actively encourage carpooling because we know the permit can then be sold to another student.

The added revenue after our first year was an interesting part of our budget hearing. Leadership agreed that we could continue to enhance our level of service and reduce our rates. Thus, after a successful deployment, we announced a rate decrease to campus and received more positive feedback than we had in years.

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Permit prices were lowered by $4—a modest decrease but one our customers appreciated.

Unexpected and Welcome Consequences

Make no mistake: Deploying LPR is not easy. It takes careful planning, and great ideas can have unintended consequences.

UWL customers were accustomed to having a tangible token of permission to park on campus. Hangtags and decals held a certain status, and we needed a way to sell LPR. The solution was as obvious as it sounds: Your plate is your permit.

That was our message, one we made central to our marketing messages when permit reminders were emailed, when our video was shot, and when we spoke to first-year students at summer orientation sessions leading into our official rollout of LPR. Policy revisions were made to define how customer data is managed and how long it is stored. The video about LPR was deliberately shot to show what our officer sees, and we encourage customers to take rides with the officer, an important ambassador who regularly engages students to ensure they make good choices about parking.

If only it were so simple.

The message that your plate is your permit worked for employees who were thrilled to leave the days of forgetting to switch their hangtags between vehicles behind.

Students, on the other hand, forgot their lot assignments and inundated our office with emails. Fixing this problem required a relatively simple revision to the permit-ordering instructions that reminded customers to remember their lot assignment and review it using the campus map. We updated our permit-ordering quick-reference sheet with information about LPR and turned it into an evergreen publication that can be used for years to come, barring changes to the university logo or colors.

Reduced rates increased demand for parking. Lots sold out in record time for the 2018–19 academic year.

Campus parking needs, confirmed by LPR data, led to the decision to convert one of our lots from resident to commuter parking, a project scheduled for this summer. The existing resident spaces will be moved to UWL’s five-level garage.

Our city adopted the same technology, paving the way for paid parking around the campus and leading to more conversations and planning to ensure we provide the best possible options for students, employees, and visitors. We expect that change to drive additional vehicles to campus, and the LPR occupancy data puts us in a better position to manage it.

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Fast Facts About UWL ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Division 3 university.

10,569 students.

1,400 employees.

18 surface lots.

One garage, five levels.

Four full-time employees for parking and transportation services (one director, two office associates, one officer).

Five student employees.

1 mobile LPR vehicle, 1 backup.

Equipment by T2, Genetec, Passport, and ParkMobile.

Lessons for the Future

LPR requires planning, patience, and a willingness to adapt and embrace changes. A mobile-only solution works for UWL but may not work in other areas. Our one-officer approach similarly works on a campus our size but may not be practical in larger operations. We don’t use every feature of the technology either. UWL, with its assigned parking in defined lots, is an ideal theater of operation for LPR—a lesson learned after several years of research before we purchased the system.

Looking ahead, we hope to install a parking guidance system for our garage. The goal, thanks to the success of LPR, is to continue to enhance customer service by eliminating the anxiety parking often induces. Digital signs and apps that push lot occupancy numbers to our customers will help students and employees who are pressed for time.

If you think your organization can make LPR work, you’re probably right, and convincing your leadership to give you time to show it works will help ensure a smooth deployment that pays dividends for the future of your parking and mobility services.

VICTOR A. HILL, CAPP, MPA, is director of

parking and transportation services at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He can be reached at vhill@uwlax.edu.

Editor’s Note: This article is a follow-up to a feature in the March 2017 issue, which prompted numerous follow-up conversations and presentations. The goal of this piece is to encapsulate lessons learned, share updates, and offer another resource to make a case for the technology with the understanding that license plate recognition (LPR) doesn’t work for every operation.