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Engineering Sciences 96 introduces students to the processes and practice of engineering design. Each year, a real-world problem is selected, and the students work on all aspects of the problem, from definition to evaluation of solutions. Professors Abernathy and Jones and the teaching fellow Solomon Diamond guide this year's team of ten juniors through the project.

The problem   This year, our task is to tackle the parking problem at Harvard. The university campus is situated at the heart of a vibrant community. The crowded streets of Cambridge must accommodate both the university population and the city residents, and there is little room for Harvard to expand. However, to keep the university on the leading edge and attract the brightest minds, Harvard needs to construct new facilities and expand its existing buildings. New construction thus imposes pressure upon available parking on two sides: demand increases as more people are welcomed into Harvard, and supply decreases as construction destroys existing surface parking lots. 

Solution components: 

Demand   Demand-side solutions involve incentives to decrease the number of spaces needed by making it cheaper and more convenient to use alternative means of transporation such as carpooling, taking mass transit, or biking to campus. Increased shuttle service, web-based information services, and balanced economic incentives may induce parkers to drive less often. Satellite parking with frequent shuttle service would alleviate the crunch in Cambridge.
Supply   Supply-side solutions involve increasing efficiency of parking and making the most of the little space that is available. Access control at lot entrances can eliminate illegally-parked vehicles that would take spaces away from legitimate parkers, as well as providing detailed information on lot usage so that permits can be assigned more efficiently. More flexible permit options such as pay-as-you-go parking and reduced-usage permits can be integrated into access control systems. The final solution is to build new parking spaces to replace those being destroyed by contruction or even to increase the supply. Underground parking is expensive but can be made more economical and efficient with the use of fully-automated garages, which save time, space, and money. 

Recommendations   Our recommendations are presented in a final report entitled Parking at Harvard: Addressing New DemandsAssociated with Campus Development  which is available here as a pdf file. 

Contact   If you have any questions or comments about the course or the work we have done, you can email Professor Frederick Abernathy or Professor R. Victor Jones. For website issues or concerns please email Silas Wang. 

Interactive   Interested in finding out more about our work? Explore our interactive and multimedia materials.