University of Michigan employees who utilize the many parking structures and surface lots on and around campus are reminded of important changes regarding parking permits and costs.
Logistics, Transportation & Parking is shifting its traditional parking permit system to a virtual permit system whereby an individual’s license plate serves as a permit. Enforcement of using license plates as the parking credential begins July 1, so employees are urged to select their level of virtual parking permit and register their vehicles’ license plates.
MORE INFORMATION
Faculty and staff may add up to three license plates to their parking account at umich.aimsparking.com. Any plate registered on the account will work, but once a plate is read on campus, no other plates on the account will be valid for the day.
Starting July 1, physical parking permits will no longer be valid. LTP has published a lengthy license plate recognition FAQ and an informational video that walks employees through the process of accessing their parking account, reserving a permit level and registering a license plate.
Virtual parking permits are valid from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, with payment made through payroll deduction. As announced in April, parking permit rates have increased by 4% for the fiscal year 2026 for all annual permit categories to help support the campus parking and transportation system including operations, maintenance and debt service. It also supports alternative transportation options including the MRide and vanpool programs.
The move to virtual permits is a response to feedback to LTP from the campus community seeking more flexibility in parking options. This change also aligns with the university’s commitment to sustainability by eliminating the need to generate physical parking permits.
The parking gate access system is also transitioning over the next year to use license plate recognition technology as the gate credential. In the meantime, employees should retain their AVI window parking pass device to access gates if they were issued one. Those without a device will be able to use their Mcard to open gates.
LTP is offering new permit options to coincide with the flexibility of the virtual permit system. Staff can purchase daily yellow and daily orange, in addition to the daily blue currently available. Graduate students will be able to purchase student orange w/after hours and a student yellow that were not available in previous years.
Anita Roggero
Changing the system to a new parking is ok, what is not ok is that fact you want to control how we park. The parking garage is very difficult to back out of, between the cars going way to fast and all the large vehicles it is very dangerous to back out. Plus we have to pay for a front tag. The New cars don’t have a place for a tag to hang on the front. I have taken pictures of my car to show you. I have to rig a place for the tag to hang the front of my car. If you pay attention, I would say 80% of the cars back in. Not that is comment will help, its how a lot of people.
Angela Martell
Agreed! I have almost been hit multiple times trying to back out of parking spaces. It is MUCH SAFER to back in so that you have better visibility when pulling out. PLEASE find a way to allow folks to continue to back in parking spots (without having to have a front license plate)!
Jill Baker
I have to agree with the comment above: backing in is much safer and makes exiting easier. In fact, I did a quick count recently. Of the twenty occupied parking spaces, seventeen vehicles were backed in; it’s what people seem to prefer.
James Weyman
Are convenient drop-off locations available for hard-plastic, windshield, card-like passes?
Gregory Lucas-Myers
Had the same question, but the answer seems to be “You’ll still need those for the next year or so before returning them.” From the FAQ: https://ltp.umich.edu/parking/lpr-faq/
Q: Will I still need a physical permit (AVI) if I have a virtual permit?
A: During the transition period of July 1, 2025 – Summer 2026, if you use gated parking areas, you will still need your current physical permit (AVI) for gate access. The AVI device will be used for gate access only, not as your parking permit. Your license plate serves as your parking permit. Once all gates are upgraded to support LPR (expected between Fall 2025 and Fall 2026), you will no longer need the AVI for access.
As all lanes are converted to LPR, we will communicate the timing on when to return your AVI to receive a $20 refund, when applicable.
Suzanne Perkins
I am concerned that there is backtracking from our net zero goals. We’ve encouraged people to bike or take the bus, partly through daily parking. It may be a training issue but I was told that I should buy monthly parking because daily is so expensive and they will no longer have a system to tell you how many days you have left, the system will allow you to drive in if your parks are out, and you will get a $75 ticket if you make this mistake. I will continue to be as green and possible and bike or walk but I am concerned that they are actively discouraging people from being good citizens.
Durosham Siddiqui
Your link is broken
Heath Hofmann
I have tried to access the provided link:
umich.aimsparking.com
but I am getting a “Bad Gateway” error code.
Mary Carr
Your link is not working!
Leah Reynolds
And yet, parking spots keep getting taken away to make room for construction trailers/fenced off areas. Do you plan to add more parking spaces to accommodate those with a Yellow permit?
Amy Dazio
Your website is not working
Secondly my car is front wheel drive. In the snow it will be a nightmare as back out sends my car sideways with snow. The front wheel drive helps tremendously.
Nicole Crandall
I drive over 100 miles per day for my work commute. I see a lot of license plates that are delaminated to the extent that they are near impossible to read. How is your system going to “see” those license plates?
Terrance Wilbert
Great point! Forgive me if this was included in your reply. I am also wondering about plates covered with snow and other debris during the winter months. How can plates be read? I don’t know what the tech is, but it seems this can be an easy fix that doesn’t negatively impact employees.
Wyatt Childress
How about instead of passing the blame onto the employee, who pays for parking, you just have the meter maids walk behind my car?
I’m not going to drill and permanently affix a front plate bracket just to have the privilege to back into a parking space. I don’t understand how you can require that. If I am inside my (AVI gates) parking structure, that’s all you need to know.
I pay good money to use these facilities, but I’m not going to irreversibly modify my car to make it easier for the meter maids. I already back in. 90% of people back in.
Like others have said, it’s far more dangerous to reverse out of your parking spot. It is more difficult, slower, and in poor weather will cause the vehicle to be less controllable.
Why don’t you just give us a dated and labelled sticker to replace the AVI unit that shows we hold a current parking pass?
I’m sure when the LPR cameras don’t work for the gated lots you guys will start demanding all vehicles adhere to specific dimensions for ride height too.
I get it. It seemed like a good idea. It probably was a good idea, at one point. Patrolling gated lots is already pointless. If you got in, you can’t leave without a pass. You have to have a pass to enter. There is no need to police the way people park in a gated, multi-level parking structure.
Wyatt Childress
I guess I just don’t get the necessity of a front plate to exist as my permit, when I already had a permit on my windshield. It was already working fine.
The front windshield, that is, being just above where a front plate would be visible, makes me assume that it would be just as easy to look for a blue AVI pass as it would to glance at my front plate.
I don’t get it.
Anne Pitcher
The new guidelines say up to 3 license plates can be registered but I don’t understand why use of the pass by 1 vehicle that enters and then later leaves a parking structure then invalidates use of the pass by the other vehicles for the rest of the day. If I use the pass to go to a morning meeting, return home, and then my husband goes to campus mid afternoon why is that use of the permit not valid? I ride my bike most of the time but in bad weather my husband and I coordinate our time on campus so we can share the pass. I am not sure why the system prohibits this particular use of the permit.
Marcel Elkouri
this just feels like another way for the university to make extra cash, which is really weird because they’re also the ones paying me and they know I can’t afford to live here already. Am I supposed to just have a two hour commute every time I need to spend five minutes checking on animals in the laboratory? That’s my punishment for not being willing to cough up more money?
Keely Russell
While I appreciate the university’s efforts to modernize and streamline the parking system, the current implementation raises several serious concerns that negatively impact employees. Many of the parking structures already suffer from poor visibility and limited space, making it difficult and unsafe to back out. This issue is compounded by the fact that backing into a space now requires employees to purchase an additional front plate and hardware—an unexpected and unnecessary cost—simply because the system is unable to read plates through the front window.
To make matters worse, these changes are being implemented alongside a 4% increase in parking rates, which feels particularly frustrating when the employee experience is not being improved, and in many cases, is being made more difficult. The added expense, lack of flexibility for how plates are displayed, and continued operational challenges in parking structures suggest that employee input and convenience were not fully considered.
I urge Logistics, Transportation & Parking to revisit these changes with greater transparency and a stronger commitment to usability, safety, and fairness for staff who rely on campus parking daily.
Kenny Hines
Back into a parking space
For safety and efficiency purposes, it is usually best to back into a parking space. Backing in allows for better visibility when exiting the spot, reducing the risk of accidents with other drivers or pedestrians.
HowStuffWorks
+1
Sheila Patton
LOL, this is so silly—my husband and I both work at the University, but apparently we can’t register each other’s vehicles on our parking passes. Are we the only UM couple who occasionally swap cars? SMH.
Jenn Berks
If you both have the same color it shouldn’t matter who is driving the car. My husband has yellow for his weekend work at the hospital and I have blue for my weekday work on campus. We’re moving down to one pass for both of us to share since our days on campus don’t line up so we will only have one car parking at a time. But if you are both potentially parking on the same days you’ll both already need a pass, and the U doesn’t care who is driving which car.
Sarah Lockwood
These comments are all valid points! I agree with all of them. I back in. If it isn’t broke, why fix it! I pay an awful lot to park here. Now you are going to make me get a front license plate because I don’t have one. Which in turn I have to purchase one and pay to have it installed!!! Are you going to reimburse me for these extras? Baking in is safer! Please reconsider these choices that were made!
Christopher Salvetti
During inclement weather, is it not uncommon for front license plates to become obscured with snow and mud? I envision long lines at the structure gates as employees will have to exit their vehicles to clean off their license plates. Not efficient and not safe. This virtual permit parking system defies logic.
Scott Likert
There is a lot wrong with this new system. When this system first came out, I emailed regarding the safety issues etc with forcing people to not back into a parking space. This is common practice everywhere and is used by a very large percentage of people at the U. Backing in and pulling our forward is just plain safer. Additionally, I know of employees who commute from out of town on a regular basis and use rental cars to get to work. Their experience will be even more difficult with the limitation of number of recognized plates. It is a way of gathering more personal information as well…providing make, model, and color of your vehicle(s).
Arthi Ramakrishnan
Much of the justification for these new parking measures is that peer institutions across the country have adopted similar rules, charges, and processes. However, PTS has not fully considered the differences between Michigan and other states—such as variations in parking availability, vehicle regulations, and license plate requirements—as well as the unique commuter population at UM, which includes people who use rentals, Zipcars, vanpools, and other forms of transportation (beyond just UM vanpools).
Implementing these rules primarily to monitor staff and parking of our vehicles is concerning. Additionally, as many have pointed out, not all vehicles have a space for a front license plate, forcing us to potentially incur extra expenses on top of the significant monthly, yearly, or per-park fees we already pay.
in all of these my parking experience is actually getting WORSE. I already do not find parking in most lots if I arrive close to 8 am, which means that I leave home by 7am. The number of spots has not been increased – whether its yellow, orange, or blue. Swapping cars within a family based on need, car breakdown, family issues, rental car needs, sharing a parking pass with significant other, none of these have been taken into consideration.
Above all forcing me to park front-in creates a hazard when backing up where I might back into another car or person walking. Weather also creates a hazard where I might not have control of the car backing up during snow/ice. The spaces are tight and crammed already, and on top of that I cannot back into it means that I cannot park safely and get out safely.
What I understand is: staff and employees are required to pay for upgrades that the University is making to its parking system. Staff and employees are incurring additional expenses for this that is not being compensated. Staff and employees are being required to park in ways that they dont feel safe doing and are not safe.
Although license plate reading is not the best way to manage access, can we at least have our back license plates read instead of adding a new one on the front?