Using Prompts and Feedback to Reduce Illegal Parking in a University Parking Lot

ABSTRACT University parking can be expensive and frustrating for students and faculty due to the limited number of parking spaces on campus and the distance from most parking lots to the campus buildings. Most commonly, parking citations are assigned to illegally parked vehicles. This may decrease illegal parking but increases student/faculty frustration. The current study, incorporating a reversal design, distributed performance feedback to illegally parked vehicles in a university parking lot. The feedback informed drivers of failure to park in a legal parking spot and informed them of where to park legally in the future. Over the course of four semesters, feedback was shown to be an effective complement to parking citations. While parking citations may have reduced illegal parking somewhat, the addition of performance feedback increased the effectiveness of citations and led to fewer illegally parked vehicles overall.