Solving Campus Parking Congestion One Garage at a Time

August, 2021

James Madison University is a Public University located in Harrisonburg, VA. It was founded in 1908 and presently enjoys NCAA Division 1 Athletic accreditation. Over the years, its growth and success have seen the school increase to 20,000 enrolled undergraduate students and a faculty of 1,500. The university consistently ranks in the top three of most categories of Public Universities.

Early in the high level of growth, the school realized it faced a problem accommodating the growing number of students, faculty, and visitors on campus each day. Parking expansion soon became a priority. In 2007, the first of seven multi-level parking structures, the Warsaw Avenue Deck, was built to mitigate parking issues. 

This mixed-use garage has different parker types with faculty/staff and students on designated levels. Looking to enhance parking accessibility, but keeping budget in mind, the university decided on a per level parking guidance system which offers parking inventory management at a fraction of cost versus a full single space monitoring system. It was important for the university to partner with an experienced provider which could deliver a variety of solutions to address parking needs in multiple garages. 

The university partnered with one of the pioneering companies bringing Parking Guidance to the U.S. market. In the selected Level Count solution, ultrasonic directional sensors monitor vehicle entry/exit at garage and level entry/exit locations. These directional sensors are highly accurate, even in wrong way counts, and are easy to install or re-locate should traffic patterns change because no saw-cutting is required. Counting accuracy is also higher compared to loop counting systems. 

A strong wireless system communication backbone greatly reduced installation costs for the university. A virtual PGS server provides parking staff with the ability to run reports and monitor statistics to optimize parking utilization.

For more information, contact Dave Radford, President TCS International Inc. at sales@tcsintl.com or 978.443.2527.