Parking and Transportation Services’ leap into the Internet age could save commuter students headaches caused by standing in infamous long lines before the start of the fall semester.
Parking services representatives said they hope that by allowing commuter students to buy their parking permits online, the annual tradition of spending hours in the sun with hundreds of other cranky students will end. Commuter students can now log on to www.unm.edu/parking to purchase parking permits.
“It’s going to have a significant impact, and I really think it’s the most significant parking endeavor at UNM in a very long time,” said Josh Kavanagh, parking services’ public information representative.
The parking services site takes students through six windows, but Kavanagh said the process only lasts about five minutes and can be done 24 hours a day. Students are asked to provide the same information they would in person, but never have to go to parking services to purchase a permit. The permits will be mailed to students a few weeks before the beginning of the fall semester.
“It’s great because I’ve seen transactions go through at all hours of the day and night,” he said. “It goes to show that we’re finally able to achieve the goal of serving students whenever it is convenient for them to work with us.”
He said Web-based permit sales were a year in the making.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
“The staff has really placed on an emphasis on being customer-service oriented,” he said. “If we can make people’s lives easier by making sure they don’t have to come to our offices and don’t have to take time away from their busy schedules, we’re happy to do it.”
Kavanagh credited Clovis Acosta, interim director of parking services, with helping the staff sell permits online.
“This really was a group effort that everyone at parking services is really excited about,” he said. “Despite the sort of carnival atmosphere we tried to set up for students in recent years, nothing beats actually saving people time. We know they’re happier, which makes us happier.”
Kavanagh was the brains behind an unusual advertising campaign that involved purchasing the bottom quarter inch of nearly every page of the New Mexico Daily Lobo for four consecutive days.
“We felt that this was a unique event for parking services and wanted a unique way to kick it off, and so far, students have responded,” he said. “I’m glad we could do it.”
While the new program is only for commuter students, Kavanagh said he expects parking services to soon be able to sell faculty, staff and special-needs permits online.
“We felt that we needed to hit commuter students first because they are such a huge customer group that includes about 5,000 people,” he said.
Kavanagh said the first year of the Internet integration program included using the parking services website, parktrans.unm.edu, as an information center. He said the next logical step was to sell permits online.
“Now we’re just about 12 months away from doing citation payment online, which means we will be able to do all the transactions we normally do in the office online,” he said. “We’re going to keep working to make dealing with parking services an easier and friendlier experience for the UNM community.”
