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Bournemouth University had an ambitious plan for 2035, but 16 car parks were held together by manual processes and mismatched systems. Here’s how we helped bring the two together.
Bournemouth University (BU) was recently included in Business Chief Magazine, Technology Magazine, and AI Magazine for its BU2035 strategy and the work it’s doing to build a culture of performance. We were proud to be part of that story, because parking is one of the areas where we have helped BU turn a major plan into something that actually works on the ground.
Gerry Greyling, BU’s Chief Operating Officer, made a point in the feature that we think about a lot: a strategy is only as good as the operating model that supports it. Having a vision is the easy part; getting day-to-day operations to match it is the hard part. Parking is a small but real example of this, and that’s where we come in: we take one part of BU’s daily operations and make it pull its weight.
The Challenge: 16 Car Parks, a Fragmented System
Universities are among the trickiest places to run parking. There are several types of user, each with different rules, spread across sites with mixed infrastructure, and all of it has to stand up to financial scrutiny. BU was no exception.
BU operates 16 car parks across its busy, multi-site campus, but not all of them were equipped with ANPR cameras. Different permit types and payment methods were required for staff, students, and visitors, and because students were exempt from VAT, this had to be reported accurately every time. The previous system couldn’t manage all of this cleanly; it was slow, relied on manual processes, and took up valuable hours of the estates team’s time.
It wasn’t just a headache behind the scenes. Different drivers had to navigate different admin processes and different payment methods, making getting a parking permit a convoluted process. All these little annoyances combined to create the exact sort of bad experience the university wanted to avoid.
Turning it Around
We built an automated permit system around the way the university actually works.
Drivers log in with their existing university details, and the system instantly recognises whether they’re staff, students, or visitors. It issues the right permit on the spot, takes payment (or skips it for free permits), and treats student parking as VAT-exempt, so finance has the correct figures from day one. What used to take days now takes a couple of minutes.
For those who only occasionally park, our app-free AutoPay lets them pay only for the days they actually use, with no need to download anything or top up. Whichever option suits them, parking at BU is simple for everyone. Our system is built to handle all the everyday administrative tasks, including whitelisting, number plate changes, and answering driver queries, so a university’s team doesn’t have to.
Want the full picture? Download the complete BU case study for the rollout timeline, the full results and what other universities can take from BU’s approach.
What Changed for BU
Parking is now much easier for thousands of staff and students, and the estates team has passed on a large amount of administrative work to us. BU also receives clear, real-time data on how its car parks are actually being used, meaning that decisions such as where to put the next cameras or how much parking the campus really needs can now be based on facts rather than guesswork.
That point relates to the wider context; a car park is eas to regard as merely a cost. If managed properly, it becomes a flexible, useful asset that earns its keep and provides real information for the overall strategy.
Hozah brings genuine innovation to a traditionally overlooked area of estate management: car parking. It’s a fully connected, AI-driven parking ecosystem that digitises every element of operation, from ANPR and automated permits to AutoPay payments and real-time insights. For BU, this has modernised parking across multiple sites, both ANPR-enabled and not, without adding burden to our teams. Hozah’s value lies in its novel, data-led approach: removing friction and administrative overhead, improving compliance, and turning a complex operational headache into a smooth, largely self-managing one.
Discover how the Hozah Ecosystem connects permits, payments, administration and real-time insights across complex multi-site estates.
Get the full Bournemouth University case study
This article covers the highlights. The full case study goes further: how the system was set up across 16 ANPR and non-ANPR car parks, how the rollout was managed with BU’s estates and finance teams, and the results in detail. If you’re weighing up a change to parking on your own campus or estate, it’s a practical place to start.
