The role of parking enforcement is not to generate citation revenue for its own sake but to improve payment compliance
The terms of the Concession Agreement include the parking rates and parking regulations set by the University.
The parking rates form the basis of the valuation of the Concession and the related bond financing and they, in turn, assume that the University will enjoy stable student enrollment (which drives total faculty, staff, student and visitor numbers) and that faculty, staff, students and visitors will comply with such parking rates and regulations.
The provision of parking is costly, in terms of building parking facilities, maintaining facilities over their useful life and in terms of operating the system so that everyone that needs to park can find a space when needed. These costs must be recovered somehow, even if parking is charged at below market rates (such as is the case at University of Toledo).
The Concession related bonds, used to redeploy the capital invested in building these assets and to fund their maintenance, are based on the assumption that users of the parking system will pay the prescribed rates.
In other words, the payment of Concession operating costs and debt service is based on stable permit revenues – not on uncertain and fluctuating citation revenue.
In fact the role of parking enforcement, whether for municipalities or universities (and the University of Toledo is truly the equivalent of a medium-sized city) is twofold –
- Firstly, to ensure payment compliance by users of the system, and
- Secondly to ensure that space availability is maximized to avoid capacity constraints that would otherwise occur as a result of abuse.
Ideally, everyone would pay the prescribed rate and remain in their parking space for their paid time and there would be zero citation revenue.
ParkUToledo uses a license plate recognition system for enforcement which automatically detects parking violations and takes photographic evidence of same. This is the same process that the University used prior to the Concession. ParkUToledo has an appeal process that requires it to review the photographic evidence in order to validate the citation – the outcome of any appeal is based on this evidence – however this does not always placate the upset customer.
All Citations can be appealed, and the appeal review process is not automated but are reviewed in person by a supervisor who examines the photographic and time stamp evidence and is required to apply the rules in a consistent way.
Good enforcement leads to higher compliance and fewer citations.