A university parking case study can read as if the campus switched everything at once. Most of these seven did not. Five of the seven campus announcements below were about parking for people without a permit: visitors, event guests and daily parkers. Permits moved separately, or stayed exactly as they were. Starting there keeps the first decision small. HONK’s guide to what a campus parking space earns covers the economics underneath.
What Did These Campuses Move Online With HONK?
Mostly the parking that never fit a permit. Here is what each release announced:
| Campus | What moved online | Announced |
|---|---|---|
| McGill University | Daily parking for students and visitors at 13 outdoor lots, replacing 2 pay and display machines | February 2026 |
| University of Houston | Visitor parking payments by text or QR code | May 2026 |
| Montana State University | Event and guest parking, arranged by departments | August 2026 |
| Kansas State University | Campus event parking, set up by departments | August 2025 |
| University of Manitoba | Paid parking by app or QR code, with guest checkout | September 2023 |
| El Camino College | Parking permits, replacing its legacy permit system | January 2026 |
| OSU Cascades | Permits and guest passes, fully digital | HONK case study |
Five of the seven announcements were about people who do not hold a permit. Two, El Camino College and OSU Cascades, moved permits. The order is not a rule, but it is a pattern, and it says something about where the old way of running campus parking costs the most. Read by date, it holds across three years: the earliest release here, Manitoba in 2023, began with paid parking and guest checkout, and the newest, Montana State in 2026, began with event and guest parking. El Camino is the one dated release that led with permits.
Why Do Visitors and Events Cost the Office the Most?
Because that is where the old system costs the office most per car. A permit holder learns the parking system once, at the start of the year. A visitor meets it once, on the day it matters, with no idea which lot to use or how to pay. Every one of those first visits becomes work for somebody.
That work shows up on every campus. At McGill, students and daily visitors used to call the parking office to pay. At Kansas State, managing event parking meant multiple steps, approvals and back and forth between departments. At OSU Cascades, admissions juggled paper passes, spreadsheets and coordination with event services, and prospective students and conference guests often left with tickets because the campus did not know their rental car plates.
None of those problems needs a new permit system to fix. Each needs a way for a person without a permit to arrive, pay or be covered, and leave without involving staff. That is a smaller project than replacing permits, which makes it a sensible first phase. It also protects the moment a campus cares about most. A prospective student’s first visit is a recruiting moment, and a ticket on the windshield is the last thing that visit should produce.
What Did the Parking Office Stop Doing?
The manual steps between a driver and a paid session. Side by side, the same work leaves the office on every campus:
| The old step | What replaced it | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Taking payment calls from daily visitors | Scan a QR code or text a code to pay, with no app | McGill |
| Pay and display machines | Contactless payment from signage | McGill |
| Approvals and back and forth for each event | Departments create their own parking events in a few clicks | Kansas State |
| Paper guest passes and spreadsheets | Guest parking codes issued in minutes | OSU Cascades |
| Manual tracking, accounting and reconciliation | Digital permits that are easier to audit | El Camino College |
Not one row adds a task for the office. Each removes one. That is the honest test of any campus parking change: count the steps that leave, and be suspicious of the ones that arrive. It also changes who answers the phone on a busy day. When a visitor can pay from the sign and a department can cover its own guests, the calls that used to reach the office stop coming. The staff time that frees up goes back to the work only the office can do: the rules, the exceptions and the appeals.
What Stayed the Same?
More than most campuses expect. At McGill, staff parking remained unchanged, with monthly permit programs continuing as usual, while students and visitors moved to mobile payment. Its monthly permit holders kept their routine while the visitor side changed around them. A campus does not have to rebuild its permit program to fix the visitor experience.
The University of Manitoba shows the same thing from the systems side: HONK’s payment options sync with the university’s internal systems. So the new payment options worked alongside the systems the university already ran.
That matters for the decision. A parking director weighing a switch is often weighing everything at once: permits, enforcement, events, visitors and the budget. These campuses show the switch can be taken in parts, one group at a time. Start where the old system hurts most, keep what works, and move the rest when the team is ready.
Staging the switch also protects the people the office can least afford to upset. Permit holders are the office’s steadiest customers and its loudest critics, and a change that leaves their routine alone lets the office prove the new system on visitors first. If that phase goes well, the permit conversation starts with evidence instead of promises.
How Do Drivers Pay on These Campuses?
From a phone, with no app required for a first visit. The payment details are consistent across the releases. At McGill, drivers scan a QR code on the signage or text a code, then pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Interac or a major credit card. At the University of Houston, guests scan a QR code or text to pay with no app or account, and can extend a session from their phone. Montana State’s event guests pay in seconds with a credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. At the University of Manitoba the driver enters a license plate with each payment, so every session arrives as a record enforcement can check.
The University of Manitoba offers both routes: the HONK app, or a QR code that opens a guest checkout with no app or account, with text reminders before a session ends. At Houston, the app is an option for repeat visitors. The app is offered, never required. Each campus also kept the choice of payment broad, from cards to mobile wallets and, in Canada, Interac. That is the common thread. The first payment has to work for someone who will never download anything, and the app is there for the people who come back.
What Should a Campus Settle Before It Switches?
Who goes first, who owns events, and what stays put. The campuses above suggest four decisions to make before the first vendor demo.
First, choose the group that goes digital first. In five of these seven releases it was visitors, event guests or daily parkers. Second, decide who sets up event parking. Kansas State and Montana State gave that job to departments. Third, decide what stays unchanged during the switch, the way McGill left staff permits alone. Fourth, plan the signs, because a QR code or a text code only works if every lot shows it clearly. Each answer has an owner. The parking office owns the first and the fourth, departments share the second, and finance usually needs a say in the third when permit revenue is involved.
Those four answers make the first phase concrete, and they make a vendor’s demo easier to judge. A demo that cannot show your first group arriving, paying and leaving is not showing the part that matters. Write the answers down before the first demo. They become the test the demo has to pass, and they keep the project from growing into a full replacement before the first phase has proven anything.
Which HONK Pieces Did These Campuses Start With?
Whichever one fixed the group the old system failed first. McGill, Houston and Manitoba started on the payment side, where daily parkers and visitors pay by scan, text or app with no permit. Kansas State and Montana State started with event and guest parking, which their departments now arrange themselves. El Camino College started with Permit Manager, replacing its legacy permit system, and now runs its event parking on HONK Guest Events, the new tool for campus event parking. OSU Cascades took four modules at once: Daily Parking Manager, Permit Manager, Validation Manager and Control Center.
None of them had to replace everything on day one, because each piece runs on the same platform and the rest can follow when the office is ready. That is the practical answer to the question a parking director asks first, which is how much has to change at once. The answer from these seven campuses is one group. OSU Cascades is planning for a 5,000 student future on a campus growing from 10 to 128 acres, and El Camino College’s event parking is the subject of HONK’s webinar on November 19. Read about Permit Manager, then start a demo request with the one group you would move first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which universities use HONK for campus parking?
McGill University, the University of Houston, Montana State University, Kansas State University, the University of Manitoba, El Camino College and OSU Cascades all run parking on HONK, among others.
Can a campus keep its permit program while visitors go digital?
Yes. McGill moved students and visitors to mobile payment while staff parking and monthly permits stayed unchanged.
Do campus visitors need to download an app?
No. On these campuses, visitors scan a QR code or text a code and pay with a card or a mobile wallet. The app is optional.
Who sets up event parking on a HONK campus?
At Kansas State and Montana State, departments set up parking for their own events, so the parking office no longer handles each request.
Sources
- HONK, HONK Goes Live at McGill University: Making Parking Easier for Students and Visitors, press release, 19 February 2026
- HONK, HONK Provides Mobile Visitor Parking at University of Houston, press release, 19 May 2026
- HONK, HONK Selected by Montana State University to Streamline Event and Guest Parking, press release, 27 August 2026
- HONK, Kansas State University Awards Campus Parking Contract to HONK, press release, 6 August 2025
- HONK, HONK Contactless Parking Arrives at the University of Manitoba, press release, 13 September 2023
- HONK, El Camino College Moves Parking Permits Online with HONK, press release, 15 January 2026
- HONK, How El Camino College Mastered Campus Event Parking with HONK, webinar registration page, read 2026-10-12
- HONK, How OSU Cascades Eliminated Physical Parking Permits and Went Fully Digital with HONK, case study, read 2026-10-12
