UU staff must now pay to park at Utrecht Science Park

Utrecht University (UU) wants to encourage employees to leave their cars at home and cycle to campus. The idea is to keep the campus accessible to all while working towards a green and car-free campus. Utrecht Science Park (USP) "is becoming busier due to the presence of more companies, organisations and homes," the university writes on its Intranet. 

UU will therefore introduce paid parking on February 2, 2026 and increase the travel allowance to encourage alternative means of transport. Currently, only visitors pay for parking at USP.

Employees will pay for parking their cars at USP between 7:00 am and 2:00 pm. They will pay a daily rate of 1 euro at the P+R Utrecht Science car park and 4 euros at other parking spaces. Parking will remain free for employees who park for less than half an hour. "If you park for longer than half an hour, you will pay the full daily rate (24 hours), regardless of the time you leave or how often you enter and exit the car park on that day. This also applies to employees who are not employed by UU but who work at USP, such as temporary workers and self-employed professionals."

To take advantage of the daily rate, UU employees must register via the Stadsparkeren website from January 1, 2026. The situation will remain largely the same for employees with a disability, who can still use the disabled parking spaces directly adjacent to the buildings, free of charge. Only the disabled parking spaces in the car parks will be subject to paid parking.

At the same time, the university also wants to accommodate its employees, which is why it will increase the travel allowance from 10 to 15 cents per kilometre as of January 1, 2026. "This should compensate or partly compensate for the additional costs incurred by colleagues who travel by car, while those who travel by public transport or bicycle will benefit."

The introduction of paid parking is unrelated to the university's cost-cutting measures. The decision was taken several years ago in consultation with other organisations at USP, such as UMC Utrecht and the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences.