UH Department of Public Safety hopes to alleviate student parking and traffic woes by utilizing Twitter and a parking lot capacity map courtesy of Google.
UHDPS offers traffic alerts to students who follow the department’s Twitter feed for congested conditions around campus.
UH Police Chief Malcolm Davis and Lt. Brett Colier helped develop the programs.
‘It’s a great way to get the information out to students quickly and efficiently,’ Colier said.
Students can access the Twitter feed at twitter.com/uh_traffic. They can receive updates for specific lot availability, lot numbers, capacity and street descriptions.
The feed also provides news on traffic reports, alternative parking suggestions and other UHDPS information.
Students can access the Web site at any time to receive constant updates.
Twitter, the 140-character social networking site, offers short updates to frequently asked questions and is the growing trend for breaking news.
UH utilizes the site for several areas of operation, including enrollment services, distance education, campus news feeds and several other departments.
The Google program, a parking lot capacity map, gives students a visual representation of lot availability.
The map also shows all student lots on campus, each with a color coded information bubble. Lot descriptions range from a green ’empty’ to a red ‘full’ symbol, with 25 percentage increments in between.
Students can click the lot for additional information such as the lot number, type and when it was last updated.
‘I watch the news for traffic on I-45 and leave two hours before class even starts. I would definitely use the map for parking updates,’ psychology senior Christina Kowalski said.
Through e-mail correspondence, Assistant Vice President for University Services Emily Messa describe the benefits of the service.
‘Parking and Transportation utilizes this new service to help inform the students who call in while looking for parking. It was extremely helpful because we are not able to physically be in all the parking lots at once,’ Messa wrote.
UHDPS parking enforcement patrols the lots and reports parking problems, which are sent to the feeds and maps to give students an almost real-time account of conditions.
Students can access both Web sites from personal computers or their phone’s mobile browser. More than 500 people are following the Twitter feed and a Facebook page is in discussion.
Updates from both Web sites run from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. during weekdays.
Traffic and parking updates will be more frequent during the start of the semester, peak hours and special events such as games and graduation.
