CUSTOMER STORY
How OSU-Cascades Eliminated Physical Parking Permits and Went Fully Digital with HONK
Oregon State University’s fast-growing Bend campus replaced legacy tools with HONK’s mobile parking platform — ending guest parking frustrations, enhancing on-campus sustainability, and preparing for a 5,000-student future.
The TL;DR (though the deep dive is worth it)
Challenges
Solutions
Impact
About OSU-Cascades
Activate instant text-to-pay or scan-to-pay for transient parkers—commuters, shoppers, visitors, etc.—without requiring an app or account.
- Expand from 10 to 128 acres
- Grow from 1,300 to 5,000 students
- Improve sustainability by encouraging environment-friendly commuting options
The Roadblock | Challenges
Legacy parking solutions were hindering campus-wide sustainability and growth efforts. OSU-Cascades struggled with:
- Frustrated visitors: Prospective students and conference guests often left with tickets—and a poor first impression—because rental car plates were unknown by the campus.
- Manual, multi-system workarounds: Without an easy, flexible way to cover parking fees for invitees, admissions juggled paper passes, spreadsheets, and coordination with Event Services.
- Lack of sustainability: Physical parking permits resulted in unnecessary paper waste.
- Limited scalability: The cost to install pay stations would be prohibitive as the campus grows from 10 to 128 acres.
“We’re a small campus with big growth ahead. We needed a red-carpet experience for visitors and a platform that could accommodate our growth.”
CASEY BERGH
Transportation Program Manager, OSU-Cascades
The Breakthrough | Solution
OSU-Cascades adopted HONK’s mobile-first platform to give visitors an improved parking experience and better support its goals. This flexible solution combines multiple HONK modules:
- Daily Parking Manager: Offer easy scan or text-to-pay payments for daily parkers, replacing paper permits.
- Permit Manager: Provide monthly resident permits with simple online document submission and approval for residence-hall students.
- Validation Manager: Create promo codes for free or discounted parking for tours, speakers and conferences.
- Control Center: A single dashboard for seamless self-serve rate and zone management, and reporting.
The Impact | Results
HONK quickly transformed campus parking at OSU-Cascades with a solution that delivers:
- A first-class visitor experience: Visitors can easily validate their own parking using promo codes, reducing citations and making their experience stress-free.
- Seamless guest parking: Event Services can issue guest parking codes in minutes–no spreadsheets or hang-tags required.
- Enhanced sustainability: Digital payment and permitting for daily parkers helps reduce paper waste on campus.
- A future-proof platform: New lots or permit types can be added easily as the 128-acre expansion progresses.
OSU-Cascades has big goals for growth and sustainability. With HONK, it now has a simple, flexible parking solution that can grow along with its campus.
“HONK gives us one back-office for all our user groups—visitors, residents, events. It just works.”
—
“The biggest compliment is silence—our teams rarely call about parking anymore because HONK handles it.”
CASEY BERGH
Transportation Program Manager, OSU-Cascades
Get top marks for campus parking
Book a demo to see how HONK delivers guest-friendly, scalable parking for universities of any size. Fill out the form below to connect with a Solution Specialist. We’ll follow up by email to schedule time to walk through the platform.