Controlling parking space is essential to ensure a consistent throughput of traffic to your business location.  Contrary to popular belief, providing free parking does not increase customer walk-in traffic and in fact, more usually decreases walk-ins because of non-availability of parking space – your largest area is typically utilized by people by have no intention of visiting your store.

Even when you are not operating a business which caters to the retail sector, controlling parking is essential to ensure employees are productive and maintain their morale, while equally, you want visitors to be able to park quickly and securely when they are doing business at your location.  Controlling site access and parking is also essential for effective delivery and dispatch of raw materials and finished goods

Parking permits and tags are usually considered to be the domain of the local agencies who are responsible for policing parking areas in towns and municipalities, however they have direct application for private landowners and businesses too.  Parking permits act as an authorization to enter and park at a location, but they also control when parking and access may take place by restricting times and dates when the permit may be used.  Where a privately owned location is using permits, the rules are at the discretion of the operator of the parking system (usually the business owner).  Where parking permits are utilized in public places, then their use and application must conform to state and county laws and regulations, including enforcement action.

There are a large number of styles and formats for parking permits which can be used in a wide variety of situations.  You may need to issue permanent parking permits, in which case they need to be robust, usually capable of being fixed to a windshield for permanent display, or alternatively, you may want to issue a temporary permit to allow a visitor access for a short visit or just the day.

The most common types of parking permit are:

• Hang Tags – these typically hang from the rearview mirror and are the most commonly used parking permit available as they lend themselves to both permanent and temporary use.  When not needed, they can be easily slipped off the rearview mirror, and when in use, they are highly visible which allows for simple enforcement and control to be exercised.  Typically, they are constructed using polyethylene which is tough and durable and you can source them as blanks, ready for you to apply your own serial or record numbers on them or you can have them pre-printed – there is no adhesive or sticky mess to contend with and the fabric of the car is unaffected;
• Bumper stickers – these are typically manufactured from a tough, weather resistant plastic with strong adhesive backing and are ideal for permanent use;
• Mirror decals – mirror decals are not placed on your car mirrors, but they have a “mirror” effect due to their design.  They have an adhesive backing or front to fix them in the car window; and
• Windshield tags – typically transparent, they are fixed to the windshield or even to the body of the car; tough and weather resistant they are a cheap and cheerful solution for permanent permits.

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Offering customer parking facilities has long been viewed as essential for attracting customers to your business, and especially for retail outlets.  Offering free parking is not the end of the story however, because “free” parking comes with a cost to your business and if you are not controlling who is using this service, and especially for how long it is being utilised, then you are failing to optimize the ROI (Return On Investment) for your business.

Curbside parking outside your store is one reason why merchants look to prime retail developments, especially downtown, as the idea is that providing parking space enhances the convenience and opportunity for through-traffic in the store.  While this sounds like it must be true from an intuitive perspective, you may be surprised to learn that curbside parking meters were not installed by any city or municipal government, but by a store owner in Oklahoma way back in 1935.  He had the idea, correct in this instance, that he needed to ensure there was available parking for customers who were going to actually use the store and not just the parking.  Available parking was continuously in use, not by customers to the store but as a point of convenient parking for visiting the downtown area – the benefit to the store owner was negligible if it was of any benefit at all.

Regulating who parks by or on your premises increases store traffic by ensuring you always have available parking.  Frequently, this entails charging for parking (which goes against the grain as 99% of parking is currently free in the US), but it focuses customer activity on your store, not the merchant area generally.  You can offset the cost to the customer by refunding the parking charge against in-store purchases, which will not deter genuine shoppers using your business.  Another technique is to ration the amount of parking time that the available space may be used – there is little benefit to your business of a free space being used by a downtown commuter for the bulk of the day or a shopper intent on convenient parking who never crosses the store threshold.

Parking permit labels and hang-tags are simple to source – online parking permit suppliers can be used to readily find parking permits which are extremely cheap and implement into a controlled parking solution.  You do not need to be concerned about spending a great deal of time or money on designing parking permits, labels or tags as many suppliers who specialise in this area, already provide easy-to-use template designs.  By combining your business identity and logo onto parking hang tags, you also help to cement your brand name in the minds of the customer.

With parking space regulations, typically designed to control vehicle emissions rather than revenue enhancement, becoming more frequent amongst many city and town agencies, you can combine the parking control policy with your own environmental efforts to reduce your carbon footprint.  For over 35 years, parking policy has largely been a dormant topic, however this is now one area where improving business effectiveness and reducing environmental impact are in harmony.

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A number of hospitals have made the news recently, not for medical advances in delivering care to patients, but rather because of how they have been dealing with parking issues and problems.  Hospitals quickly generate parking problems wherever they are located because of the density of car users converging on them – the population of a working hospital can increase by over 500% during the course of the day as family and well-wishers visit patients in care.  This causes significant parking and congestion issues as well as creating serious problems for residents in the vicinity of the hospital who find they cannot park their vehicles due to the demand by visitors.

Scripps Memorial Hospital is a hospital on the Pacific coast in California and is currently undergoing a major expansion which will see significant enlargement in terms of size, personnel, patients and of course, and visitor traffic.  The parking issue (and having to divvy out more parking hang tags) is being dealt with by building a new parking garage with 883 spaces to help ease the parking problem which is primarily associated with the very busy ER department.  The construction costs for the whole project, including the garage amount to over $200 million and the objective is to cater for demand and the growth in services to take the hospital through to 2030.

Local residents sought concessions before project approval was given, in particular to deal with the local congestion and parking problems which would be compounded by the expansion.  The garage was decided to be the most appropriate route instead of reinforcing a parking permit strategy which left local residents with mixed feelings – happy at the improved hospital services and yet dismayed at the increased congestion and parking with little restrictions or protections for local residents.

Staying with California, the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (SVMH) is also undergoing major refurbishment and expansion with a large scale construction program.  SVMH have a blended parking system whereby employees can use a shuttle service into the hospital from outlying locations to reduce congestion.  At the same time, local residential areas enjoy controlled parking through the use of permits which prevents overstaying or misuse by visitor traffic which has expanded parking facilities being made available on the site.  The expansion plans entailed a review of the established parking permit system for controlling residential parking and it was found that this was working well for local residents though additional parking facilities at the hospital would be needed to remove additional pressures by visitor traffic that the expansion would bring.

The SVMH model of blended parking solutions is one which is being increasingly adopted by other hospitals across the country and internationally.  By reducing staff traffic and offering effective shuttle transport, journey times for employees can be substantially reduced as can their stress levels.  By focusing on providing visitor parking facilities at the hospital location, this allows the pressure to be taken off the local residential areas which can be effectively protected by a parking permit system and rigorous enforcement.  Though hospitals are generally good neighbors to have, they do create a wealth of traffic problems for the area which requires careful consideration to maximize their effectiveness and minimize disruption the area.

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Hoboken is a New Jersey city which butts up against Manhattan – it occupies only one square mile, but every year, more than one million motorists use Hoboken to park their cars in – a huge headache for the city and for parking enforcement.  Using traditional parking enforcement techniques such as paper or plastic based parking permits, parking meters and exclusion zones required a huge amount of manpower to enforce and falsifying documents was rife.  Enforcement was further complicated by the limited practicality of taking abusers to court and the legality of impounding illegally parked cars or indeed, cars which had a permit but which was not properly displayed.

In short, Hoboken needed a parking enforcement solution which would definitively identify those vehicles which could be legally parked in a spot and which were undeniably, illegally parked.

The solution was to implement RFID tags into the parking permits issued by the city.  RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification, and relies on the tag emitting a radio signal which in turn can be read by a “reader” used by the enforcement officer.  This process takes seconds and the information is instantly conveyed to the parking officer.  There is no need to check where a permit is located as the radio signal is emitted from the permit through the vehicle.  No radio signal means there is no parking permit and the vehicle is illegally parked, allowing a ticket to be issued.

The RFID parking permit also delivers numerous other benefits and advantages over the old system too.  Hoboken residents with a vehicle can now apply for a permit online or by using the telephone service, and overall, it is much easier to get a parking permit which saves the customer time but also saves the city time and money in processing the application and receiving payment for the permit.  This serves to maximize revenues to the city but at the same time, reduces the cost of acquiring these revenues.

RFID parking permits are extremely difficult to counterfeit – this means that fake permits are no longer such a problem in terms of lost revenues to the city and increased costs associated with the enforcement of the parking regulations.  Stolen parking permits were also a significant problem, accounting for a large number of vehicle break-ins and contributing to the crime levels experienced in the area.  As the RFID tag contains vehicle information which not only identifies who can park but which vehicle can be used, the RFID tags are not transferable and have no value to a thief or an unscrupulous motorist.

The RFID tag contains the make and model of the vehicle, the color, the driver’s license information as well as the vehicle identification and license plate number.  This makes identification of a specific vehicle simple and definitive and the reader which is used to identify the signal can readily display the information to the parking enforcement officer.

The cost of implementing the system was a mere $50,000 for the RFID tags and the reading equipment, and yet the benefits of the system have already delivered in the region of $8 million in increased revenues and reduced costs.

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Humble parking permits rarely make the news but you may be surprised at how politically charged the issue of parking and the prospective regulation of where you can park your car on a weekday or weekend becomes.

Albany in upstate New York is a great example of how parking laws which may seem so simple on the face of it, can divide a city and destroy political alliances as well as several careers.

Albany has become a bustling minor city with several parking issues to contend with.  It is not simply the issue of where can you park without getting a ticket, but who can park in your neighborhood without detracting from the area where you live!

Albany had a serious issue with people commuting into the city both to work there and as a transit point for other destinations because of the established rail center, airport and jumping off point for Canada to the north and New York City to the south.  Many commuters were parking in neighborhoods which simply didn’t want them there but unless the city made the act illegal, there was nothing unlawful about parking in front of someone’s house and blocking their drive!

Several incidents served to underline the point when in 1996, one irritated homeowner commandeered a wrecking truck and proceeded to haul away several cars parked outside his home.  Tempers flared when car owners returned to find their vehicles had been “stolen”, and violence erupted when it became clear the homeowner had hauled the cars away.

In 2004, an effort to impose a parking law which the state legislature approved of but which the city council didn’t want because it was not broad enough to be effective failed to be approved.  The ensuing political machinations would have done credit to Machiavelli, the scheming Italian politician.  Two major unions in the area, several political figures and bi-partisan grass roots movements on both sides of the parking divide came head to head.

The collision was as thunderous as any rear-ender!

Today, Albany still does not have a parking permit system despite more than 20 years of political bickering.

Parking issues dominate local elections and politics because they are emotive – people don’t want strangers using their neighborhood as a car lot, while commuters consider they already have a hard enough job getting to and from work and should not be treated unfairly.  Drivers of any denomination consider the issuance of parking fines to be just another form of raising revenue for the city or local government.

The key to effective parking regulation is to provide a fair and clear set of standards.  Parking permits are an ideal way of demonstrating just who, and when a vehicle can be parked in an area.   They provide a cheap form of regulation of parking but the crux of the underlying issue must be that parking regulations are imposed which are clearly in everyone’s interests.  It is not sufficient to simply proclaim a road or area a “No Parking Zone”; people need to use their vehicles and to be able to park when they are working or commuting, but as Albany demonstrates, getting a consensus is one heck of job requiring more than the wisdom of Solomon.

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Sourcing parking hang tags for your merchandising needs has never been easier with the internet making supplier choice so much easier.  This said there are drawbacks and you need to be clear on what you are looking for in a supply partner.

Many suppliers operating on the internet offer great deals and discounts and you can find some truly exceptional offers, but at the same time, developing a relationship with a trusted supplier needs something more than an internet website and an email ordering system.

To separate the good suppliers from those more interested in making a fast buck, think about the following issues and select your hang tag supplier accordingly.

Shortlist Suitable Hang Tag Suppliers

Instead of placing an order with the first website offering a great deal, make sure you have looked at a range of potential hang tag suppliers before you make a decision.  It’s usually a good idea to work up a list of five or six potential suppliers which you can take a closer look at – this number is manageable and you can create the list based on price, turnaround times or ability to offer a wide product range for your other requirements.

Look Behind the Website

It’s easy to create a great looking website that gives the impression of a huge company capable of delivering the moon and the sun.  Taking a look at who is operating behind the website can give you a good idea of the kind of business and service you are likely to receive in practice.

Check the “About Us” page and look what the business has to say for itself – if they don’t have one, look for client testimonials – if they don’t have those, check out the various consumer forums and message boards on the web to see what people are generally saying.  If you can’t find anything, consider dropping the company from your list.

What Are Your Continuing Requirements?

The internet is great for finding a supplier to fulfil a last minute order that needs to be done by tomorrow (you hope), but the best supplier to fulfil rush jobs and meet any non-standard requirements will be a supplier you have developed a good relationship with.

Ask yourself what your broader requirements are and whether the potential suppliers you are considering will be capable of delivering the services you are going to be looking for in future.  Your imminent order should be an opportunity to start a business relationship which will provide you with your non-standard needs down the road.

How Do You Want to Do Business?

Offering a secure web platform to transact business, handle the design stage and to communicate through is not something which suits everybody.  You may need to be able to pick up the phone and talk to the supplier, in some cases you may need to physically meet with them too.  Does the supplier offer standard business terms which include providing trade credit and operate on a monthly invoicing system?  Remember the customer is the party which needs to be satisfied and while an online business model has many advantages; ultimately, your suppliers should be tailoring how they do business to suit you.

Visit MaverickLabel.com for your hang tag needs.

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There’s no one more excited on the job than a new employee. Starting a new job is both a wonderful and a nerve-wracking time. As an employer it is critical you start each new employee with a new parking permit for safety, security and overall peace of mind.

Some companies don’t like parking permits. They say they are too much work, that they “know” every employee on their grounds and they don’t want or need the added security parking permits could bring. But for the majority of today’s companies, parking permits are a valued necessity. You’ll find parking permits offer tremendous security and maintain order even under minor “nuisance” issues that can be easily resolved – all because you have issued every new employee a parking permit.

Issue parking permits right away. When you hire a new employee you want them to start working immediately but often there is a short orientation period. Use this time to also issue them a new parking permit. Ask that new employee to display the new parking permit from the rear view mirror inside their car or on the dashboard. Alert security that the new employee has a parking permit.

As you issue new parking permits you should take some basic information from an employee for security to have on hand. They should have what department the employee works and what their extension is. Security should also know who their supervisor is and what the extension is for that person. It is ideal if security has their license plate number and type of car.

You may wonder, “Why would security need all of this information?” But truly it makes things easier for security and also new employees. Say for example a new employee’s car has a flat tire and a security guard notices it while making their rounds. They can identify whose car it is by the parking permit and contact them directly. If that person is in a meeting, they can reach their supervisor. This makes it so much easier to solve problems that can occur which can be quite frustrating to your employees and might otherwise cause them to miss time from work taking care of them. But when your security staff has contact information available, they save your staff time and make things far more convenient for them.

Having this information also means that security will know exactly who is on the grounds at all times. If a new employee wants to make a good impression and comes into work early, security will know they are on the grounds because they have checked them in and identified them from their parking permit.

Parking permits make work easier for new employees and also for your security team. They will quickly get to know new employees and soon recognize when people are expected to be in the office or on the grounds. If someone’s car is there late – security can go check by their office to see if everything is alright. While most companies are safe and secure most of the time. New employees often feel a stronger sense of security when they see security staff contact them and check on them periodically like this. Parking permits are an ideal way of keeping track of your company’s staff.

provided by Mark Trumper

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Controlling your parking, issuing parking permits  and making sure only authorized staff and users take advantage of your facilities is one of those aspects of running a business which can give you a major headache, but really, is a minor issue which shouldn’t be dominating your time.   Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, you are going to have to implement parking control of some description to avoid staff disputes and even worse, customers trying to park, can’t find a slot because someone has taken them over and simply heading down the road to buy from someone else!

The issue arises in that parking permits can take you time to source and find a reliable supplier to deliver them to your individual needs, and even worse, parking permits will be used over time and need to be replaced frequently as people lose them or they are issued for one-time use.

This is why the internet has come to take such a chunk of the parking permit market – it is quick, cheap and easy to get the product you want changed and re-ordered.  But all this presupposes you have found a supplier who will handle your needs to begin with, so how do you find someone you are never likely going to meet who will do this for you over the world wide web?

First of all, all that you see on the web is not necessarily what you will end with in practice.  Ignore the hype and glossy websites and check for customer reviews elsewhere on the web to see who is getting a positive press.  You can check any company you are short-listing against these forums and consumer sites and see what other customers are saying about them.  If you find a company with positive reviews and they appear to be able to deliver the product you need, you are well on the way to choosing your supplier.  A word of caution though, just because you see negative reviews does not mean the supplier is not up to the job – good news is usually that there is no news!

You can also check the bona fides of the website itself very easily.  Almost every site has an “About Us” section and here you will find information such as telephone and address information.  Check that the telephone number given actually exists – call it because it ought to be a toll-free number, and check that it is in service.  Check that there is a physical mailing address and not simply a PO box which a scam artist is able to hide behind.

A good, online print partner for parking permits will provide templates and design services, especially if they are experienced in delivering this type of product.  The general feel of the web site should convince you that this is a company which knows what it is doing, understands customer needs and that they are all different.   You ought to be able to “play” with design online and be able to get help from the company when you cannot see how their standard product offerings can help.  At the end of the day, you choose to deal with a company online in exactly the same way you choose partners and suppliers in the real world – by how they treat you.

Order your parking permits online @ MaverickLabel.com

Mark Trumper

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Many companies don’t think very much about parking permits. Not one bit. Why should they? Parking permits are something you give out to a new employee as they go through their employee orientation. Some companies update parking passes. But we’d like to suggest you consider thinking much more of the parking pass than it being something for your employee to add to their car.

Parking permits keep employees safe. Many companies have systems where they know which employees have entered their facility. This is an ideal system, whether you simply check people off manually or you have a digital scanner or even a video camera. It is critical you know where your employees are, especially if they come in to work early or work late. Every employer wants their employees to be safe – no one likes to think of an employee having an accident on the job and it not being discovered until much later because no one realized that employee was on the grounds. Knowing who is on your grounds through parking permits can help prevent that from occurring.

Parking permits also help to keep employers safe too. Employers need to be careful about knowing exactly who is on their company property and who isn’t. Security staff needs to be sure to match an employee’s car and face with their parking permit every time. A parking permit can be stolen, and someone that doesn’t belong there could therefore gain access to your company’s grounds. Or a terminated employee could come on grounds with an old parking permit. It is critical that your security staff stays up-to-date on which parking permits have expired. Anyone with an expired or canceled permit should not be allowed on grounds, no matter what their job title. Not everyone in the company may be aware of a termination – and this may prevent a serious situation before it gets worse.

The best parking permits are ones that must be updated regularly. While your security staff may grumble a bit at this idea, it actually does a bit of good work for them. Just as we mentioned the example of the terminated employee gaining access – there are other examples of people you simply don’t want gaining access to your company’s grounds with a parking permit. Having a system that updates parking permits every quarter or a certain time period is an excellent precaution for your security personnel. While it may offer them paperwork and some more time in the office, it can save them from managing a more serious situation.

A parking permit is ideal when it has all of the important information about an employee. The parking permit should have their license plate number, car model, job title and full name. Ideally it has their work telephone number as well. It should also have a recent photo of the person. Security should check the photo and the license plate number on the parking permit every time someone comes in. This is an ideal precaution for your company – and puts the parking permits to good use.

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I’ve started a new job and they made me get a parking permit. A parking permit? How official! I guess every company has its own procedures. My Human Resources Manager asked me to keep note of my feelings about having a parking permit over the next two weeks and to report back. So I’ll share them with you.

Day 1, Week 1: Entering the Building They Know Who You Are

What a great feeling to work in a large company but to have the security office know who I am as I enter the company grounds. I was nervous for my first day, wondering how things would be. But the security manager smiled and said, “Welcome Mr. Clark.” I just felt better and more at home right at once. I know I’m going to like it here.

Day 3, Week 1: Left My Lights On

Today we’ve had a thunderstorm and I left the lights on my car. This could have been a real hassle at the end of the day, with me calling for a jump from an auto shop at the end of the day and waiting at least an hour for them to show up. But instead, I got a call from the security desk about twenty minutes into my day that my lights were on. I went down to my car and turned them off. Security suggested I check the battery at lunch to be sure it works. They said they can call the auto shop for me then if it doesn’t so I wont miss any time from work calling an auto shop at the end of the day. How convenient!

Day 4, Week 1: Came to Work Early Today

I lost a little time yesterday dealing with my lights so I came to work early today to catch up on everything. Security was there in their station, greeting me by name. I was one of the first cars on the grounds. In some ways I was glad they were there so I wasn’t there by myself. It’s a new place to me and being somewhere unfamiliar is a bit intimidating. The security guard also told me that security keeps early employees or late employees safe, especially if they are working alone. That they know who is working often by checking your parking permit. And they’ll check on someone if they see my car there but I haven’t come out in awhile. This is a great place.

Day 1, Week 2: Human Resources Confirmed My Emergency Contacts

Today I got a call from Human Resources. I didn’t fill out completely my emergency contacts for my parking permit. You need to put down at least one emergency contact for your parking permit and I didn’t give them a telephone number. So I went down to their department and filled that out. At first I thought these parking permits were a little silly and kind of a hassle but now I realize my company is looking out for me. If anything happens to me, they’ll always have my emergency contact information handy and be able to help me. This is much better than working for a company that doesn’t have parking permits.

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