{"id":765,"date":"2024-11-12T14:36:53","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T14:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tickle.utk.edu\/ise\/?p=765"},"modified":"2024-12-10T15:47:50","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T15:47:50","slug":"ise-students-help-alleviate-campus-parking-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tickle.utk.edu\/ise\/ise-students-help-alleviate-campus-parking-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"ISE Students Help Alleviate Campus Parking Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there is one thing that binds nearly every student and faculty member at the University of Tennessee together, it\u2019s the daily struggle to find a place to park.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several students from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering worked on solutions to alleviate the problem through their classes <\/span>in the Heath Integrated Business and Engineering Program<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Their work was used to help develop the new <\/span>VolPark app<\/span><\/a>, which utilizes crowdsourced data to provide real-time parking lot occupancies and deliver guided navigation to the best available parking areas based on a user\u2019s permit type.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Through interviews, prototypes, and cost-analysis research, the ISE students and their fellow Heath IBEP classmates assisted UT Parking & Transportation in finding solutions that would ease the parking angst across more than 150 parking areas on campus. The app was developed by ParkZen, with the Heath IBEP teams providing valuable input and suggestions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe features that the students wanted, most of those recent changes to the app over the last six months have come from that work that the Heath IBEP students have done,\u201d said Brad Heaton, the interim director of parking administration at UT. \u201cThey were really guiding the roadmap, and it’s going to benefit not just our university, but other campuses that are starting to use it as well.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"female<\/p>\n

Upgrading Parking Solutions<\/h2>\n

In August of 2023, UT Parking & Transportation was approached by Bob Buckner, director of the Heath IBEP and Gary Null, ISE assistant department head for undergraduate affairs and assistant professor of practice, about potential parking spot availability projects.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They collaborated to develop projects that would provide Heath IBEP students the ability to research, test, and analyze potential solutions and provide recommendations that could assist UTPT in managing the unprecedented growth and demand the university is experiencing in parking.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Null incorporated the projects into his Engineering Fundamentals 203 and 303 classes that help students develop the skills and understanding necessary for effective engineering and business collaborations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Multiple teams of students worked on the parking-related projects during the fall 2023 and spring 2024 semesters that paved the way for feedback to help develop the VolPark app.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe previous way you could get information about parking was just a website link, and a lot of people said that they never even opened it,\u201d said ISE senior Caroline Czarnecki. \u201cThe majority of the information they got about parking and transportation was through mass emails that nobody ever read, so we wanted to come up with a way to make information more accessible to everybody.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

User-Friendly Information<\/h2>\n

The VolPark app can be used anonymously and generates a random unique ID that is used to identify a specific phone to allow the crowd-sourcing artificial intelligence to work. The app does not have access to any private information about the user even if a profile is created. Students using the app can select their permit type when creating a profile to display only the parking areas where their permit is valid. The app can also warn students if they are trying to park in an area where their permit is not valid.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The app has the potential to reduce parking search time from an hour to around 10 minutes during peak times on campus.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Czarnecki interviewed nearly 150 students from more than 40 majors to get their input about parking at UT. Then, she did a cost benefit analysis of using cameras to track cars arriving and leaving rather than metal plates. Finally, her team created the main features of a prototype app that was similar to the VolPark app.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of the app, when I open it up, it’s like, \u2018wow, this looks pretty much exactly like how we suggested it should,\u2019\u201d Czarnecki said. \u201cIt was really rewarding, because I saw a lot of the things that I created and a lot of things that my teammates created implemented into the app. We actually made an impact that will help make a part of campus more efficient and will be around for a while.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"female<\/p>\n

Rewarding Failures<\/h2>\n

Null wanted each team to work as fast as possible on their projects to have what they developed tested by the customer and gain more feedback.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they fail, and I hope they fail fast, because then they can continue to iterate and prototype off of that, and they don’t get too attached to the prototype itself,\u201d Null said. \u201cBecause once you take the whole semester and you get attached to something, and then it doesn\u2019t work, it\u2019s hard to bounce back from that.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The failures forced the students to quicky pivot and try to improve the outcomes. Through the evolution of their projects, they saw how valuable it was to learn from failed attempts and how much more successful the outcome was in the end.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most rewarding aspect of the parking projects has been seeing their work used on a daily basis for a problem that was so widespread.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy with how all the projects worked out,\u201d Null said. \u201cWith all the classes I’ve taught for 203 and for 303, the students will just overly impress you, because the very first time they present, they’re very crude. They’re very unsure of themselves. They don’t really understand the problem. But in 16 weeks, they’re very professional. It feels like they’ve been doing this for years, and they present a good solution to the customer.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact<\/h2>\n

Rhiannon Potkey (865-974-0683,\u00a0rpotkey@utk.edu<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISE students were involved in creating the VolPark app through their classes in the Heath Integrated Business and Engineering Program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,22],"tags":[39,40,268,267],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ise-students","category-undergraduate-accomplishments","tag-caroline-czarnecki","tag-ibep","tag-ut-parking-transportation","tag-volpark-app"],"yoast_head":"\nISE Students Help Alleviate Campus Parking Problems - Industrial and Systems Engineering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ISE students were involved in creating the VolPark app through their classes in the Heath Integrated Business and Engineering Program.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tickle.utk.edu\/ise\/ise-students-help-alleviate-campus-parking-problems\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ISE Students Help Alleviate Campus Parking Problems - 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