Prepared for Erie County Parks, Recreation & Forestry
One reservation system for every Erie County park
Campsites, shelters, lodges, and buildings across nine County parks on a single platform, built anchor-park first and launched County-wide on May 1, 2027, under a forward-deployed engagement model.
1Executive summary
Where the County is, what we propose, and what changes.
Erie County runs a large public park system: 18 properties and about 10,000 acres, with rentable facilities at nine of them. Those facilities include more than 120 shelters, lodges, and buildings, plus the Sprague Brook campground. Park access and boat launches are free. Reservations are the County's main point of contact with its residents.
In our October 6 conversation you described the problem plainly. The current system treats each facility on its own. When a resident's first-choice shelter is taken, nothing points them to an open one ten minutes away. They give up or call the office. As you put it, the County's goal is better service for residents, not more revenue.
This proposal puts all nine parks on one reservation platform. We build the most complex park first, configure the other eight on the same pattern, and open all nine to the public together on May 1, 2027. Requirements work (the "test-fit") can start this month at no cost and with no commitment, so the County's procurement timeline does not set the go-live date.
2Current state & the case for change
What the County works with today, from our call and the County's published pages.
What exists today
- An online map-based request tool for shelters and buildings, with availability checked one facility at a time
- Camping at Sprague Brook booked by phone (716-858-8355), weekdays 8:30 AM to 3:45 PM
- Seasonal inventory: camping May 1 to October 31 depending on site, shelters May 15 to October 15, and some buildings year-round
- Payment by credit card or check, collected up front; all reservations final, with no refunds
- No on-site office staff at most parks; maintenance staff and rangers verify guests by license plate
- A separate system (Chronogolf) for golf reservations and card payments
Where this costs the County
- A resident who finds their shelter booked hits a dead end, even when a comparable shelter nearby is open
- Phone-only camping means bookings happen only when the office is open
- Rangers lack a simple daily list of who should be on each site
- Finance reconciles reservation revenue by hand against its own reports
- Each new property the County acquires adds another set of facilities to manage the same way
- Group bookings, such as a Scout troop needing several sites, have to be handled one reservation at a time
3What we propose
One platform for all nine parks, two features built for the County, and a team assigned to land it.
3.1 One platform, all nine parks
- One inventory covering every rentable facility at every park: Sprague Brook campsites (electric and non-electric), open-air shelters, lodges, casinos, cabins, and event spaces. Today that includes Akron Falls, Chestnut Ridge, Como Lake, Ellicott Creek, Elma Meadows, Emery, Isle View, and Sprague Brook. The full list of nine is confirmed during the test-fit.
- Interactive park maps. RoverPass builds a clickable map for each park. Residents pick the exact shelter or site, see photos, table counts, and electricity, and book it. Map design fee waived for this engagement.
- Online booking, 24/7, with mobile-first checkout and card payments through Stripe (PCI DSS Level 1).
- The phone line still works. Staff book phone requests into the same system residents use, so there is one calendar and no double-booking.
- Room for growth. When the County adds a property, it is added to the same system. No new contract or license is needed.
- Back-office dashboard that switches between parks in one click and rolls up to County-level reports.
Representative photography.
3.2 Built for Erie County
Two items from our call go beyond standard configuration. RoverPass builds both as part of this engagement at no added cost.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Nearby-shelter suggestions | When the shelter a resident wants is taken on their date, the booking page shows comparable shelters at other County parks nearby (for example, within 10 miles), matched on capacity, electricity, and price. Each suggestion is a one-click link to that shelter's calendar. The County sets the matching rules. In 12 years in this industry we have not seen a reservation system that does this, and it addresses the problem you described most directly. |
| Card-and-check payments, cash off | Online bookings are card-only. Staff can record check payments against a reservation. Cash is switched off as a payment option for the County's account, so it never appears at checkout or in staff screens. |
3.3 Your rules, configured
Each rule below comes from the County's published policies. We configure and test every one during the test-fit, before any park goes live.
- Two-week maximum stay; 2-night weekend minimum at Sprague Brook; holiday minimum-night rules where the County wants them
- Seasonal availability by site and facility (sites 1–30 from May 1, sites 31–123 from May 15, non-electric from Memorial Day, shelters May 15 to October 15, year-round buildings)
- Rate tiers: electric ($30) and non-electric ($23) campsites, shelter and building rates by facility
- Check-in 3 PM, check-out 11 AM; shelter hours 10 AM to park close
- Required acknowledgements at checkout: minimum renter age of 21, site capacity of 8, no generators, park rules. Guests cannot complete a booking without accepting them
- Weekend building rental cutoff (Friday at noon) and the County's booking-window dates
- No-refund policy, with the option to issue rain-check credits instead of refunds when the County chooses
3.4 Rangers, cleaning, and groups
- Daily arrivals list for rangers. The license plate is a required checkout field. Rangers open each day's arrivals, by park and site, on a phone. No office required.
- Front-office display board for any park that does have an office or window: the day's check-ins, check-outs, and site assignments on a screen.
- Housekeeping module that tracks cleaning status for shelters, lodges, and buildings, with damage photos and recurring maintenance tasks. Maintenance staff see what needs turning over before the next group arrives.
- Group room blocks (scheduled for release in Q4 2026): staff select several sites, and the system generates one link so each member of a group, such as a Scout troop, books their own site.
- Guest messaging. Each booking sends confirmation, reminder, and check-in texts and emails automatically. Staff and guests can message each other directly, and guests sign in through a link with no password.
- Guest records. Profiles, booking history, and the ability to flag or ban a guest who breaks park rules.
3.5 Accounting the way the County already does it
- GL codes per facility type, item, and fee, so revenue lands in the right accounts.
- Exports that match your current reports. You send the report formats finance uses today, and we build the exports to match. Finance keeps its process.
- Settlement set up with County finance during rollout, so funds settle where the Comptroller expects them.
- QuickBooks and Zapier integrations included. The integrations bundle is waived for this engagement. That includes Zapier alerts into Microsoft Teams for new bookings or cancellations.
3.6 Forward-deployed team & training
RoverPass assigns a Solution Engineer and a Product Specialist to the County for the full rollout. Everyone at RoverPass, including customer support, writes code. When the County asks for a change, the people who hear the request can build it, and it ships through AI-assisted automated testing. Requests raised during rollout are typically worked within 24 hours.
- A County champion. We ask the County to name one internal owner, backed by a small team. RoverPass supports that person directly.
- Role-based training for the dozen-plus staff involved: park management, reservations, rangers and maintenance, and accounting. Live remote sessions, recorded modules, and written step-by-step guides.
- One on-site training week in April 2027, in Buffalo, ahead of go-live.
- Support after launch: phone and ticketing Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM CT, plus 24/7 AI-powered help inside the system.
3.7 Optional add-ons
None of these are needed on day one. The County can add any of them later. Bookings come directly through the County; RoverPass does not list County parks on its consumer marketplace.
| Add-on | What it does | Status | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI guest chatbot | Answers resident questions about parks, rates, rules, and availability using the County's own information and live reservation data. Questions it cannot answer become support tickets for staff. | Available today | $299 / month County-wide, or $49 / property / month |
| E-signature waivers | Digital liability or rules waiver signed by the renter and attached to the reservation. | Available today | $0.99 per signature |
| Card-reader hardware | Card readers for in-person payments at any park office or desk, tied to the same reservation system. | Available today | Added cost, quoted per device |
4Rollout approach
Build the hardest park first. Copy the pattern. Open all nine together.
Test-fit
Inventory, rules, rates, and accounting formats gathered and configured in a sandbox. No cost and no commitment. This runs while the County completes procurement.
Anchor park: Sprague Brook
The only park with campsites, shelters, and a building, so every rule type gets solved here first. Nearby-shelter suggestions and payment settings built in parallel.
Remaining eight parks
Configured on the Sprague Brook pattern. Maps built, 2027 reservations migrated, staff trained, and accounting run in parallel.
All nine parks, public
All nine parks open online on the same day, ahead of the camping season, with daily RoverPass support during the first two weeks.
Why one go-live date. You told us a single County-wide launch is the preferred approach. Building one park first means the hard problems are solved once. Launching all nine together means residents, rangers, and finance learn one system on one date instead of living with two systems for months. Pat Harrison Waterway District in Mississippi, also nine properties, used the same anchor-first approach.
Roles & responsibilities
- RoverPass: configuration, maps, custom builds, booking pages, payments setup, data migration, accounting exports, training, launch support, and ongoing support.
- County champion: one point of contact; sign-off on rates, rules, and public-facing text; coordination with finance, park managers, and County communications.
- County finance: current report formats, GL structure, settlement account details, and sign-off on the parallel run.
- Park managers & rangers: attend training; run day-to-day operations after go-live. No new headcount needed.
5Implementation plan
Every workstream from test-fit to go-live, in half-month blocks.
Program timeline · Nov 2026 → May 2027
The procurement bar is the County's. The plan assumes a signed agreement by late January 2027. The test-fit runs before that at no cost, so most of the configuration work is done when the contract lands. If signature slips past February, we will tell the County right away which date moves: May 1 for all nine parks, or May 1 for the anchor park with the rest following.
6Risks & mitigations
What could go wrong in this rollout, and how we prevent it.
| Risk | Why it matters | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 bookings start before go-live | The County opens 2027 shelter and building reservations on January 7, 2027, and camping books up to a year out. By May 1, hundreds of 2027 reservations will already sit in the current system. | Every forward 2027 reservation is migrated during March and April and reconciled one by one against the current system's records. No public launch until the match is 100%. Bookings made in the current system after migration starts are caught in a final delta load at cutover. |
| Procurement timing | Selection depends on staff returning at year-end and possibly a County RFP. A late contract squeezes a four-month onboarding. | The test-fit starts now at no cost, independent of the contract. RoverPass will respond to a County RFP or work through a cooperative contract if one applies, whichever the County prefers. This proposal can serve as reference scope for either. |
| Staff adoption | More than a dozen staff across four roles need to trust the new system, and most parks have no office. | Role-based training, a named County champion, one on-site week before launch, and a soft-launch period where staff book on the new system before the public does. |
| Finance reconciliation | Reservation revenue has to land in the right accounts and match the County's existing reports. Errors here reach the Comptroller. | GL mapping in the test-fit, exports built to the County's own formats, a two-week parallel run in April, and joint reconciliation of the first 60 days after launch. |
| County payment requirements | The County may have treasury or merchant-account rules, and golf already processes cards through Chronogolf. | Payment and settlement requirements are confirmed with County finance during the test-fit, so they never sit on the critical path. |
| Scope growth | Nine parks produce many reasonable requests. Together they can push back the date. | Go-live scope is locked at signature. New requests are logged and scheduled after May 1 unless they block launch. Because our team ships changes quickly, "after May 1" usually means weeks, not a year. |
7Public-sector requirements
What a County has to confirm before signing, and how we meet it.
| Requirement | How we meet it |
|---|---|
| Data ownership | All reservation, guest, financial, and operational data belongs to Erie County. Full export available at any time in standard formats, with no-cost data return at termination. |
| Payment compliance | PCI DSS Level 1 through Stripe. Card data is tokenized end-to-end and never stored by the County or RoverPass (SAQ-A scope for the County). |
| Freedom of Information Law | Reservation logs, revenue summaries, and audit trails exportable on demand to support New York FOIL requests. |
| Audit trail | Every reservation records each line item, payment, change, and the staff member who made it. |
| Access control | Unlimited staff logins with role-based permissions, so each person sees only what their job needs. |
| Uptime & support | 99.9% monthly uptime target. Dedicated escalation channel for the County with a 1-hour business-hours and 4-hour after-hours response target, on top of standard support. |
| Hosting | US-hosted infrastructure (DigitalOcean, with file storage on AWS S3 US). Daily backups, 30-day point-in-time recovery, and a documented disaster-recovery plan. |
| Insurance | Commercial general liability, cyber liability, and errors & omissions coverage. Certificates naming Erie County available on request. |
8Pricing
Nothing from the County's operating budget for the platform.
Erie County pays $0 for the reservation platform. There is no license fee, no per-park fee, no implementation cost, and no charge for the custom builds in §3.2. RoverPass earns a $3.50 fee per reservation, which is typically shown to the guest as a reservation fee at checkout. Card processing is part of the guest's transaction.
| Component | Cost to the County | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Platform license (all nine parks) | $0 | No per-park or per-user fee. New properties added free. |
| Implementation & test-fit | $0 | Solution Engineer and Product Specialist through go-live, plus the on-site week. |
| Set-up fee | WAIVED | Standard one-time setup fee. |
| Interactive map design (×9 parks) | WAIVED | Standard per-park map fee. |
| Custom builds (§3.2) & accounting exports (§3.5) | $0 | Nearby-shelter suggestions, cash disabled, exports matched to County reports. |
| Reservation fee | $3.50 per reservation | Every reservation, online or staff-entered. Passed to the guest or absorbed by the County, at the County's choice. |
| Card processing | 2.9% + $0.25 | Standard processing rate, with no RoverPass markup. |
| Mass text messages | $0.08 per text | Bulk alerts only. Confirmations, reminders, and one-to-one chats are free. |
| Minimum monthly fee | WAIVED | Standard $99 / property / month minimum, waived while all nine parks participate. |
| Integrations bundle | WAIVED | QuickBooks and Zapier. Standard $29 / month. |
| AI guest chatbot (optional) | $299 / month | All nine parks. Individual parks: $49 / property / month. |
| E-signature waivers (optional) | $0.99 per signature | Only if the County adds digital waivers. |
| Card-reader hardware (optional) | Added cost | Quoted per device. |
The $3.50 reservation fee, card processing rate, text-message rate, $99 monthly minimum, and add-on prices are RoverPass's standard rates for all customers. The set-up, map, minimum-fee, and integrations waivers, the $299 County-wide chatbot rate, and the no-cost custom builds are specific to this engagement.
9Contract terms
The commercial framework in one place for procurement review.
| Topic | Term |
|---|---|
| Initial term | One year from public go-live (target May 1, 2027). |
| Cancellation & renewal | Either party may cancel with 90 days' written notice before expiration. Renews in 90-day terms until cancelled or replaced. |
| Engagement-specific waivers | The set-up, map design, minimum-fee, and integrations-bundle waivers, and the $299 County-wide chatbot rate, hold for the initial term and any renewal while all nine parks remain in scope. |
| Billing | Transaction fees billed monthly in arrears. Usage-based items (mass texts, e-signatures) billed per use. Balances may be withheld from reservation payouts if a payment method fails. |
| County obligations | Provide park inventory, rates, rules, and current reservations; current finance report formats; billing information including a W-9; and a named County champion. |
| Data ownership & exit | All data remains the County's. Full export on demand. No-cost data return at termination. |
| Governing terms | Subject to RoverPass's published Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, as modified by §12. The executed agreement prevails over the standard terms. |
10Why RoverPass
We have done this before, for a public agency with nine properties.
- A public-sector reference with the same shape. Pat Harrison Waterway District in Mississippi manages nine properties and moved onto RoverPass through a staged rollout. We will connect you with their leadership directly.
- Built for many locations. Many systems you evaluate were designed for a single campground. RoverPass handles many parks under one account, with one dashboard and County-level reporting.
- We customize. Every RoverPass employee writes code, and AI-assisted testing checks each change before it ships. That is how we can commit to nearby-shelter suggestions, a feature we have not seen in another reservation system.
- A team, not a login. A Solution Engineer and Product Specialist stay with the County through go-live, so the County does not need a project manager of its own.
- Twelve years in this category. RoverPass is based in Austin, Texas, and has served campgrounds and parks continuously since 2014.
11Next steps
Short and in order.
- Reference call. RoverPass connects you with Pat Harrison Waterway District leadership.
- Report formats. The County sends current reservation and finance report formats so we can match them.
- Leadership review. You share this proposal and our call notes with County leadership.
- Start the test-fit. A 30-minute kickoff in November, at no cost and with no commitment, so the work is underway while procurement runs.
- Procurement path. The County picks its route: a cooperative contract if one applies, or a County RFP. RoverPass will respond to either.
- Anchor build starts at signature, targeting public go-live for all nine parks on May 1, 2027.
12Terms of Service, Privacy Policy & legal terms
Governing documents, incorporated by reference, plus engagement-level terms.
12.1 Incorporated documents
| Document | Location |
|---|---|
| Terms of Service | software.roverpass.com/terms-and-policies/terms-of-services |
| Privacy Policy | software.roverpass.com/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy |
| Sales Policy | software.roverpass.com/terms-and-policies/sales-policy |
| All policies (index) | software.roverpass.com/terms-and-policies |
12.2 Order of precedence
If the documents conflict, this order applies: (1) the executed agreement, including any terms required by a County RFP; (2) this proposal, including §9; (3) RoverPass's standard Terms of Service and policies.
12.3 County accommodations
RoverPass's standard Terms of Service specify Texas governing law, Travis County venue, and binding arbitration. RoverPass recognizes that Erie County may not be able to accept these. For this engagement, RoverPass will accept New York governing law, venue in Erie County, and waiver of binding arbitration in the executed agreement, along with any standard County contract provisions required by law.
12.4 Privacy & data protection
- Data ownership: all data is and remains the County's (§7). RoverPass processes it only to deliver the services in this proposal.
- Guest privacy: RoverPass does not sell guest data. Guests see the Privacy Policy at checkout.
- Payment data: tokenized end-to-end by Stripe. Neither RoverPass nor the County stores card numbers.
- Public records: nothing in the incorporated policies limits the County's obligations under New York's Freedom of Information Law.
12.5 General terms
| Topic | Term |
|---|---|
| Independent contractor | RoverPass is an independent contractor. Nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship. |
| Force majeure | Neither party is liable for delays caused by events beyond its reasonable control (severe weather, utility or network outage, government action), provided it gives prompt notice and resumes performance as soon as practicable. |
| Assignment | Neither party may assign this agreement without the other's written consent, except to a successor in a merger or sale of substantially all assets. |
| Electronic signatures | May be executed electronically and in counterparts, valid under the federal E-SIGN Act and New York's Electronic Signatures and Records Act. |
| Entire agreement | This proposal, the documents in §12.1, and the executed agreement are the entire agreement. Amendments must be in writing and signed by both parties. |
13Acceptance
Signing below authorizes RoverPass to begin the anchor build.
By signing, Erie County accepts this proposal, including the pricing in §8, the terms in §9, and the legal terms in §12, subject to any procurement steps County law requires. The parties will record these terms in a short-form service agreement. Each signatory confirms they are authorized to bind their party.
Erie County
Signature
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RoverPass, Inc.
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Sign by hand on the printed PDF, or electronically per §12.5. Return the signed copy to ravi@roverpass.com.