Note NEW parking selection platform:
Season parking will no longer be available to be automatically renewed during the season ticket renewal process for the 2022 season. Rutgers Athletics is rolling out a new parking selection platform that will allow the department to annually evaluate parking inventory while accommodating donors with a unique appointment time to choose parking based on their individual needs through the integrated and automated parking selection process.
Thanks for sharing this. I think this is a great improvement, and it is about time that Rutgers did something like this to make parking selection more fair for fans.
Easier to match your donation to the minimum required for the lot you get
For years, Rutgers has required a minimum donation to qualify for certain lots, but making that donation did not guarantee that you'd get the lot. So you could donate the $1000 required to get a Yellow pass, but actually end up in a lot with a much lower donation requirement.
With this new program, you don't have to make the donation to qualify for a lot until you know which lot you will get. So if you get Yellow, you need to bring your donation total to $1000. But if you get Purple, you only need $250.
The most loyal fans get to pick earlier than fly-by-night fans
This new system gives a huge advantage to loyal fans since your selection order is based solely on priority points. Rutgers' Priority Point calculation includes a bunch of loyalty factors, such as consecutive year purchase, lifetime donations, tickets in multiple sports, etc. A loyal fan will have more priority points than a fly-by-night fan at similar donation levels, and the loyal fan will be able to pick better parking.
Tailgate groups can ensure they end up in the same lot
The new system allows tailgate groups to select their lots at the same time, to ensure they end up together. Under the previous system, you could end up in one lot and other members of your tailgate group could be in a different lot, because you never knew which lot you were going to get until after they were assigned.
That said, Rutgers needs to be careful to avoid logistics snafus with implementing this plan.
They need to make sure the website is well tested across multiple devices and operating systems, and doesn't crash.
They need to break down the windows to manageable sizes, but still give fans enough time to select. The announcement says selection will occur during 11 weekdays from June 1 to June 15. If there are 11,000 season ticket accounts, and they have 11 full-day selection windows, that means 1000 accounts trying to log in to select parking in each window. If the selection windows are half-day, then you have 500 accounts trying to log in each 3.5 hour window. And even there, 500 accounts at a time could quickly fill up smaller lots like Scarlet and Green. So you run the risk that one of your best donors, who easily qualifies for Scarlet gets bumped to Green or Yellow only because they log in during the last hour of their window.
I think Rutgers would be smarter to extend the selection period another week to 16 days. That gives them more windows with fewer fans per window. And they would also need to ensure that size of each group doesn't exceed more than about 33% of the lot that is expected to fill. So the first group to select would be sized so they can't fill more than 33% of the Scarlet lot. The second group would be sized to fill the next 33% of Scarlet, and then the next 33% of Scarlet followed by 33% of Green, etc.
Additionally, Rutgers needs a robust plan in place for those fans who follow "If you know in advance that you will not be available, simply notify your account representative and we will take the appropriate measures to help secure your parking pass for the season". Without a robust plan, those ticket reps will be quickly overwhelmed, resulting in dissatisfied fans.