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If you’ve been to any major airports in the US chances are you’ve seen signs for “Cell Phone Parking Lots” cropping up. These lots are an easy way to save money and avoid parking fees when picking up people at the airport.

Busy airports have had a long standing traffic problem with people circling the main terminal loop waiting to pick up passengers. These drivers move at a slow pace looking for their party over and over again, creating congestion. In a post 9/11 world airport security has become much less tolerant of people parking or driving slowly outside of terminals.

The idea behind a cell phone parking lot is you’ll wait in the lot (usually located at the edge or perimeter of the airport) for your party to call when they’ve landed. You’ll go to pick them up when they have landed and call you from their cell phone. If everything works out as planned you should be at the terminal by the time they have picked up their luggage (ok you’ll have to loop once or twice).

However don’t get any ideas about using the lot for free long term parking. The lots aren’t large and are manned or regularly patrolled by airport and TSA security, who are very aggressive about towing unattended vehicles.

At the time of writing over 20 airports have remote parking lots including Chicago O’Hare, Baltimore Washington Airport, Tucson Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, and Orlando International Airport. More airports have plans to add these lots going forward.