Parking scheme is based on NTNU´s environmental ambitions

The new parking scheme is based on NTNU’s environmental ambition statement, which was adopted at a Deans’ meeting in 2012. The environmental ambitions set clear goals related to energy consumption, waste, purchasing and transport. One of the sub-goals in the environmental ambition statement concerns transport. Here, NTNU aims to ‘pave the way for staff and students to choose an environmentally friendly means of transport in their daily travel to and from the university campuses.’ Carpooling, NTNU bus passes for work travel during working hours and electric bicycles are among the initiatives NTNU has been working on to meet the need for eco-friendly travel in line with this goal. We have also been working on improving conditions for cyclists, with more bicycle sheds and changing facilities, as well as free parking for electric vehicles.

All parking at NTNU is governed by civil law, i.e. NTNU decides which solutions to use for payment, how and when enforcement takes place, and where staff and students can park at lower rates. The income from both parking charges and parking fines goes to NTNU directly, and not to the company hired for enforcement (Trondheim Parkering). All income is earmarked for other environmental initiatives at NTNU to benefit all staff and students.

When NTNU chose the payment system for the new parking scheme, we emphasized finding a solution that was as similar as possible to payment systems common in public and private parking facilities. We also wanted the system to be as forward-looking and eco-friendly as possible. For these reasons we chose a ticketless system without paper, but with electronic payment.

We think it is a pity that so many employees forget to pay. We do not want employees to be fined, but we cannot see any immediate solutions to avoid this in the current system. When employees do not pay, whether intentionally or because they forgot, we have to be consistent.

We are concerned about improving our solution, and this was a factor in work on the design before start-up of the system. In this phase, we considered various solutions involving scanning of registration numbers when cars enter the parking areas. We have not yet gone further with this, because the technology is still fairly immature.

We thank you for your comments, and we will keep them in mind in further development of the solution.

Yours sincerely,

Jørn-Wiggo Bergquist

Head of Operations Division