USF Parking and Transportation Services (PATS) seeks to improve the parking experience for students, staff, and faculty on the Tampa Campus. Carpooling to campus reduces traffic congestion, makes more parking spaces available, saves fuel, money and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The RideFlag app can confirm the number of people in your car and can deliver to you through your mobile phone an instant digital daily preferred carpool parking permit upon arriving to campus. By testing the accuracy and reliability of the RideFlag app with volunteer carpool testers, PATS is one step closer to improving the parking experience on the Tampa Campus.
If you already drive in a carpool to the USF Tampa Campus or if you drive alone to campus but also want to help us test the app, you can find a friend to be a passenger in your car for the test. Please sign up here. A carpool includes the driver and one or more other passengers.
Once you submit this completed form, you will be emailed instructions for how to download and use the RideFlag app, a location map of all preferred carpool parking spaces on campus, and a Frequently Asked Questions sheet providing more detail how this test works.
If you have any questions about this pilot, please contact Sara Hendricks with USF’s Center for Urban Transportation Research at hendrick@usf.edu
#1: USF Parking and Transportation Services seeks to improve the parking experience for students, staff, and faculty on the Tampa Campus. Carpooling to campus reduces traffic congestion, makes more parking spaces available, saves fuel, money and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The RideFlag app can confirm the number of people in a car and can deliver digital rewards to commuters who carpool to campus. By testing the accuracy and reliability of the RideFlag app with volunteer carpool testers, PATS is one step closer to improving the parking experience on the Tampa Campus.
#3: Yes, if you are the driver of the carpool. You must have either a current E, GZ, S, R, or Y permit, or you can have a daily permit purchased online.
#4: For purposes of testing the parking app, the daily USF parking permit that makes you eligible to test the app must be purchased online at https://usfpts.t2hosted.com/cmn/auth_ext.aspx
#5: This SurveyMonkey link is our sign-up form for students to participate. Alternatively, you may send an email to Sara Hendricks at hendrick@usf.edu and provide her with your name, mobile phone number for the phone onto which you plan to download the RideFlag app, your email address, and if you are the driver of the carpool, the license plate numbers with your USF Parking Permit for any cars you plan to drive to campus while carpooling.
#6: Your sign-up information is used by RideFlag to set you up with the beta version of the app, and PATS uses your license plate number to verify that you have a permit. The RideFlag backend system communicates with PATS that your license plate number xxx-xxx has been validated as a carpool. Then PATS enforcement personnel will know that your car is permitted to park in the preferred parking spaces.
#7: USF Parking and Transportation Services is sponsoring this app test, in collaboration with the USF Center for Urban Transportation.
#8: PATS seeks to test and finish this pilot during Spring semester 2023. Testing will begin as soon as volunteers sign up and the carpool signage for designated parking spaces is set up.
#9: The RideFlag app uses a patented vehicle occupancy detection (VOD) technology called Multiface. When the app prompts you to verify your carpool while you are still parked before the beginning of your trip, you will place the faces of everyone in the carpool within the screen of your mobile phone. The app takes a “snapshot” of facial dimensions that determines that the faces are real people and not photos or mannequins. Then the app verifies your carpool. When you arrive on campus, you will pass across a geofence. The app will deliver an audio announcement that your carpool has been rewarded with a digital daily preferred carpool parking permit. The app may ask you to reverify your carpool at the very end of your trip. For purposes of this pilot, real photos also are taken, so that researchers at the USF Center for Urban Transportation Research can compare the app VOD determination with the photo to confirm the accuracy of the app.
#10: Can I leave campus during the day, then return later and still have my preferred parking space?
#10: Yes.
#11: No. You may park in any of the 14 preferred carpool parking spaces designated with signage for this pilot. However, the specific carpool parking spaces are first come first served.
#13: Starting your trip from any area beyond the geofenced border (gray area on map) will make your carpool eligible for preferential parking. Anyone starting their trip to campus from within this gray area on the map is encouraged to ride the Bull Runner.
Geofence borders include:
• Bruce B Downs (BBD) & N 37th St. to BBD & due north of N 46th St.
• BBD & N 46th St. to E Fletcher Ave & N 46th St.
• E Fletcher Ave & N 46th St. to E Fletcher Ave & N 50th St.
• E Fletcher Ave & N 50th St. to E Fowler Ave & N 50th St.
• E Fowler Ave & N 50th St. to E Fowler Ave & N 46th St.
• E Fowler Ave & N 46th St. E Bougainvillea Ave & N 46th St.
• E Bougainvillea Ave & N 46th St. to E Bougainvillea Ave & N 30th St.
• E Bougainvillea Ave & N 30th St. to E Fowler Ave & N 30th St. (BBD)
• E Fowler Ave & N 30th St. (BBD) to E Fowler Ave & N 15th St.
• E Fowler Ave & N 15th St. to E Fletcher Ave & N 15th St.
• E Fletcher Ave & N 15th St. to E Fletcher Ave & due south of N 37th St.
• E Fletcher Ave & due south of N 37th St. to Bruce B Downs (BBD) & N 37th St.
#14: There are designated carpool parking spaces close to buildings in seven locations described in the table and map below.
| USF Preferred Carpool Parking Pilot Program | ||
| Location # | Lot # | Number of Signed Parking Stalls |
| 1 | 38F | 2 |
| 2 | 8B | 2 |
| 3 | 3A | 2 |
| 4 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 | 22D | 2 |
| 6 | Collins Garage | 2 |
| 7 | 43 | 2 |
