Frogparking delivers a tailor-made solution for the University of Southern California (USC)

With necessity comes innovation, which is how the Frogparking team came up with a solution that was tailor-made to meet the needs of the University of Southern California (USC).

USC is the oldest private university in California, founded in 1880. With over 45,000 students and over 20,000 staff and spread across two large urban campuses near Downtown Los Angeles, there are many challenges when it comes to transportation and the mobility of people. Space to physically expand is at a premium so the USC Transportation team has to find smart solutions to ensure what parking they do have is utilized to its maximum.

After looking around for a parking solution, Associate Director of USC’s Transportation team, David Donovan, explains that in Frogparking they found a technology partner to meet the unique needs at their McCarthy Way and Downey Way Parking Structures.

“We had been looking into automated counting systems for a long time and had tried loops at the structure entrances and other solutions off and on for years, but they never really worked for us,” says Donovan.

“We have a large number of custom spaces (Reserved for VIPs, ADA spaces, pay-by-plate, etc.) on the first floor of our structures that we didn’t want to be included in the overall space availability count, so having in-ground or overhead counters at the entrances wasn’t meeting our needs, because they captured ALL vehicles coming in, without regard to whether we ultimately wanted them included in the count or not,” says Donovan.

That’s when Frogparking joined the conversation.

“Primarily, Frogparking listened to us and helped customize an installation that addressed our concerns,” continues Donovan.

“They did this in two key ways: the first was to perform multiple site visits upfront in order to really understand what we were trying to do. This allowed us to re-think the strategy of having car counting at the entrances at all.

“Moving the vehicle counting sensors to a point farther inside the structures, which no other vendor had even suggested, allowed us to save a lot of money on their second recommendation: individual space-counting sensors that would allow us to remove a custom space OUT of the count if someone occupied it after entering the structure,” says Donovan.

Thus, Frogparking’s Vehicle Count+ product was born. With both garages only having two points of entry and exit, as well as other unique design features at the structures, plus the requirements of USC, vehicle counting technology could be both reliable and accurate.

In true Frogparking style, Vehicle Count+ differs from traditional vehicle counting technology. Starting by using its patented laser-precise class-1 eye-safe laser sensor to ensure accurate vehicle detection. Data collected by the system is enriched. Where other vehicle counting systems are unable to distinguish VIPs, ADAs, or other unique parking users, Vehicle Count+ is able to accurately record usage in these bays with space-by-space sensors and still count vehicles entering a parking structure.

Accurate and enriched data which will uniquely position USC’s Transportation team to exit the COVID-19 lockdown.

“I do expect that as the University emerges from the COVID lockdown affecting the entire country and gears up operations again, the Frogparking data available online through the dashboard will be extremely valuable in monitoring usage patterns,” says Donovan.

Ultimately, USC says their experience with Frogparking has been excellent, with the goal being to expand the technology across the campus.

“We’ve been very happy with the product, installation process, and customer support teams from the very start.  We’re looking forward to expanding the solution from our initial two-structure pilot phase into additional parking structures in the near future,” says Donovan.

Can Frogparking do the same at your parking structure? Let’s talk!