T2 Systems: Grand Valley State University Improves Campus Parking Operations With Upsafety®

Client Snapshot

• Institution: Grand Valley State University (GVSU)
• Location: Allendale and Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Population Served: Approximately 22,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff, plus campus visitors and tenants
• Parking Spaces Supported: Approximately 12,000 parking spaces across three campuses
• Parking Permits Issued: Over 10,500 permits issued during the fall semester
• Industry: Higher Education
• T2 Systems Solutions: T2 UPsafety® Permit & Enforcement, T2 Pay Stations

Background

Grand Valley State University operates a complex, multi-campus parking system that supports students, faculty, staff, visitors, and campus partners across West Michigan.

Parking and Transportation Services manages approximately 12,000 parking spaces and more than 10,500 permits each fall, serving a campus community of over 22,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff. The operation spans three primary locations:

• Allendale Campus
• Grand Rapids City Campus (formerly Pew Campus)
• Health Campus

Across these campuses, the department oversees a wide mix of parking environments, including surface lots and parking structures. The team must balance residential student parking, commuter demand, faculty and staff parking needs, and visitor access—often adjusting operations as campus demand shifts throughout the academic year.

Despite the scale of the system, a relatively small core team oversees permitting, enforcement, reporting, and customer service—supported by nearly 100 student employees who assist with front desk operations, compliance patrols, license plate recognition (LPR) enforcement, and parking services support.

Managing a parking system of this size requires tools that support efficient workflows, provide operational visibility, and help staff respond quickly to changing campus parking demand.

Challenges

Like many universities, GVSU’s parking team manages a wide variety of parking needs—from residential student permits and commuter parking to faculty, staff, visitor access, and special campus events.

With parking operations spread across three campuses and thousands of permits issued each semester, the team must balance competing parking demands while ensuring that enforcement, customer service, and administrative processes run smoothly.

As the operation continued to grow, the department identified several opportunities to improve how parking services were delivered and managed across campus.

Key operational challenges included:

• Managing a complex parking operation with a small administrative team
• Ensuring efficient permit management and purchasing processes for thousands of parkers
• Providing a clear and intuitive digital parking experience for students, faculty, and staff
• Accessing operational reporting quickly to monitor permit sales and enforcement activity
• Supporting efficient enforcement workflows for officers working across multiple campuses
• Providing staff with the information they need to assist parkers quickly and accurately
• Gaining clearer visibility into parking demand to support long-term planning decisions

Addressing these challenges would help the department maintain a smooth parking experience for campus parkers while giving staff better tools to manage daily operations.

Solution

To support these goals, GVSU selected UPsafety® in late 2019 and launched the platform in 2020 as part of a broader effort to support campus parking operations.

“We wanted to improve the portal experience for our students and faculty,” said Lisa Morningstar, Parking Operations Assistant. “After careful evaluation, we found UPsafety to be very streamlined and visually appealing.”

The platform introduced several capabilities designed to support both office staff and enforcement teams in the field.

Key components of the solution included:

• Virtual permits, allowing students and employees to manage parking credentials digitally
• Online permit sales, enabling most permits to be purchased through the parking portal
• Mobile enforcement tools, allowing officers to issue citations and document violations from handheld devices
• Operational reporting, providing quick access to permit and enforcement data
• Single sign-on (SSO) integration, allowing users to access parking services through the university’s MyGVSU portal

UPsafety’s mobile enforcement technology was a major factor in the university’s decision.

“The handhelds were a super huge reason that we pushed for UPsafety from our administration. The flow on it is just super easy and super straightforward.” — Chris Swank, Director of Parking, Transportation and Facilities Services

The platform also supported the university’s transition toward virtual permits and expanded online services.

“UPsafety does virtual permits, which is what we wanted to move toward,” Swank said. “We went to all online sales with UPsafety.”

Single sign-on integration later simplified access for campus users.

“That’s been the biggest feature most recently,” Swank said. “Now they have one less password to remember.”

For administrative staff managing daily operations, the system supports faster workflows.

“When the system makes things faster and easier to manage, it makes your day more productive,” Morningstar said.

Results

With UPsafety in place, GVSU’s parking team has strengthened visibility across its operations while improving several key workflows across the department.

Access to operational reporting allows the team to quickly retrieve information about permit sales, citation activity, and other important metrics.

“I needed to do some billing for intern permits and needed to know how many we had sold,” Morningstar said. “We ran the report and in about 30 seconds it was done.”

Real-time visibility into permit inventory is particularly helpful during the start of the fall semester when parking demand increases quickly.

“At the beginning of the year we’re selling resident permits,” Swank explained. “We want a quick check to see how many we’ve sold and how many we have left.”

These insights allow the team to monitor permit availability and adjust parking allocations as needed.

UPsafety has also improved workflows for front-desk staff and student employees assisting parkers with questions about permits and citations.

“The ease of being able to look up someone’s permit and the history of their permit, or look at the history of their tickets, makes that customer service experience so much better,” Morningstar said.

Access to citation photos and related records also provides helpful context when assisting parkers.

“The pictures that are on there that we can look at are really helpful,” she added.

For enforcement officers in the field, UPsafety’s handheld devices allow citations to be issued quickly while keeping information synchronized with the back office.

“The handhelds are really easy,” Swank said. “The flow on it is super straightforward.”

The system also allows enforcement staff to place alerts on vehicles when needed.

“We can put a note on a plate or a car and set a date on it so we don’t have to remember to take it off,” Morningstar explained. “That was huge for our staff outside.”

Access to reliable operational data has also supported campus planning decisions.

“We had a year where residential parking demand was extremely high,” Morningstar said. “Chris was able to take that information to leadership and say, ‘Hey, we need a new lot.’”

“Having that data and having it visible made it possible to do that,” she added.

Today, UPsafety supports several important aspects of GVSU’s parking operation:

• Managing permits through virtual permits and primarily online sales
• Accessing operational reporting and permit data quickly
• Supporting customer service workflows in the parking office
• Synchronizing enforcement activity between field staff and the back office
• Monitoring parking demand to support campus planning decisions

Interested in improving your campus parking operations?

Discover how UPsafety and T2 Systems solutions can help your institution simplify parking management, improve enforcement efficiency, and deliver a better experience for students, faculty, and visitors.

👉 Learn how T2 Systems can help your campus operate smarter and serve parkers better. Contact us today.

About T2 Systems 

T2 is the largest provider of parking and mobility solutions in North America. With over 27 years in business, T2 now serves more than 2,000 customers and maintains the largest Customer Community with over 7,500 active members. T2 helps universities, municipalities, operators, healthcare campuses, and transportation hubs generate revenue and operate efficiently with a comprehensive, integrated suite of solutions featuring touchless and contactless capabilities. From curbside management to gateless, from mobile payments to transportation demand management, T2 strives to make every trip a smooth journey by streamlining the parking, mobility, and transportation experience with technology solutions that help organizations manage resources, achieve goals, and empower consumers with choices.