Methodology to Determine Faculty and Staff Parking Permit Fees on University Campuses

This article proposes a methodology to compute the annual parking permit fees for university employees on campuses. This methodology determines separate permit fees for faculty and staff for each parking zone. It first establishes the campus-wide base prices for employees, faculty, and staff parking permits. A tobit regression model, using the data from 213 universities across the United States, was developed to estimate the employee base price of a campus. The employee base price is then combined with the median salaries of faculty and staff, respectively, to derive the faculty and staff base prices. The methodology then assumes that the employees, faculty, and staff each have a constant value of parking access. For each zone, the annual value of parking access is the sum of the annual permit fee of the zone and the annual value of walking time from the zone to the subject's workplace on campus. Knowing the average annual value of parking access and the average annual value of walking time from a zone, the average annual parking permit fee of the zone can be determined. The methodology is applied to a campus that has 41 employee parking zones in an example problem.