When posed the question of what needs to improve the most at Sinclair Community College, most students respond with one word—parking.
So for Paul Murphy, assistant director of Business Services, developing a plan of action has been the focus for the past year.
During that time, Murphy has experimented with a parking pass for lot M and has been exploring the possibility of developing a contactless Tartan card, which would allow students to tap their card on the reader, rather than swiping it.
All of these possibilities could be solutions but pale in comparison to one state-of-the-art technology—a Radio-Frequency-Identification hangtag.
RFID for short, the hangtag would actually be placed inside the vehicle, usually around the rear-view mirror. When the student pulls up to the lane, the frequency is read and the payment is processed.
This technology is the product of TransCore, a corporation that has developed this technology for large cities that have toll-roads, such as Orlando or Miami, Fl.
The RFID allows the vehicle to drive through specific lanes that allow the vehicle to avoid stopping when paying for tolls, keeping traffic flowing and limiting congestion.
“We’re literally going to jump decades of technology into the future,” Murphy said. “Getting this to integrate into our system is going to be the real challenge.”
Murphy said he would like to see this technology implemented at Sinclair by fall 2013, to help turn the 2,780 parking spaces more times throughout the day, making more spaces available for more students.
He also said that traffic flow might change, with entrance ramps turning to exits during heavy rush periods on one side of the garage.
“If there’s something that we can do to get the spaces turned—then let’s do it,” Murphy said. “And that’s what this RFID is going to do.”
He also said the new changes would help to weed out some of the outside parkers who are not Sinclair students or staff.
“We want people parking here that are going to use the facilities, not people who are parking here that are going to walk down to the courthouse,” Murphy said.
He suggested that the RFID hangtag may be the best possible option for the garage, which is currently under summer maintenance to recondition the concrete structure.
To find out which of the new possibilities is the best option for Sinclair, Murphy would like to know how students feel about the possible changes. They are entertaining the possibility of holding a student forum in the fall, where Business Services could hear many different students’ opinions about the possible changes.
“We want to spend fall [2012] talking with people,” Murphy said. “Getting the word out there and showing them what options we have. It’s going to be a change, and we’ll have to have everyone on the same page.”
In the meantime, students can email their comments about the possible changes to parking@sinclair.edu.