• Texas A&M University Transportation Services employs approximately 108 staff and 334 students
• The Parking area of Transportation Services manages in excess of 30,000 parking spaces – the largest of any university in the nation. These spaces are spread over 120 parking lots and five parking garages.
• The Transit area of the department transports approximately 150,000 passengers per week, on and off campus.
• The department provides night and weekend shuttle service as well as game day shuttles.
• Transportation Services maintains a Paratransit service for faculty, staff and students with permanent disabilities.
• The Transit area of Transportation Services also provides auxiliary charter service to University departments and agencies, as well as local governmental agencies and school districts – approximately 16,000 hours of service annually.
• The Fleet area of Transportation Services leases over 800 University owned vehicles and operates a full maintenance facility maintaining over 1200 vehicles and an additional 5000 pieces of equipment. It also oversees fleet services for the entire A&M System.
• Transportation Services issues approximately 37,000 student parking permits and 15,000 faculty/staff permits each year.
• Transportation Services is responsible for the installation and maintenance of all traffic signs and markings on University streets.
• Proposed Budget for FY06: $26 million. The department is self-sufficient and receives income from permits, visitor parking and violations and fines. Departments are charged for annual rental of vehicles, maintenance and repair of vehicles, fuel and daily rental usage. The Transit area is dependent on the Transportation Fee and a small subsidy from the operating budget.
• Services
  • Charter bus service
  • Fleet leasing and maintenance
  • Parking administration and enforcement
  • Shuttle bus service
  • TAMU System fleet management
  • Traffic planning and control

Customers with a blue permit could park in any blue lot. Customers with a red permit could park in any red lot. As simple as this seems it caused major problems for our customers. Because red lots were around both the north and south side dorms and Kyle fields it created a system where expectations were set such that customers with a red permit thought they were going to be able to park near their dorm. This was not the case because so much of the red parking lots were around Kyle (today lots day 62 and 48). The current system correctly sets expectations because customers with a lot 40 permit will have a spot in one of the lots around the south side dorms.

A similar situation occurred in the blue lots. Present day lot 50 (1638 spaces) was part of the blue system along with about 10000 spaces on west campus. Most blue permit holders expected to be able to park in 50 and would circle the lot and follow parkers back to their cars hoping to get a space. This caused traffic congestion and delays in that part of campus. Customers would get extremely frustrated with us and the system because they could not find a space and would often be late for class. We often would hear complaints from students needing to come 60-90 minutes early to find a spaces. This was clearly a sign of a system that was broken even though it was very simple on paper.

The current system correctly sets expectations and allows some mobility between main and west campus. The 100 lots are open to any valid permit so a 50 permit holder can move over to west campus if they need to. Traffic has also been reduced by about 30%.