The Borough of State College in Pennsylvania recently deployed a high tech ALPR pay-by-plate system consisting of Genetec ALPR software, ALPR cameras and technologies from T2, Parkmobile and Digital Payment Technologies to manage the college town's paid parking system. As the 12th most populous municipality in Pennsylvania, State College Borough is home to over 42,000 residents. A bustling college town, it attracts many visitors with its popular restaurants, nightlife, active arts scene and abundant retail options.
The Borough of State College in Pennsylvania recently deployed a high tech ALPR pay-by-plate system consisting of Genetec ALPR software, ALPR cameras and technologies from T2, Parkmobile and Digital Payment Technologies to manage the college town's paid parking system. As the 12th most populous municipality in Pennsylvania, State College Borough is home to over 42,000 residents. A bustling college town, it attracts many visitors with its popular restaurants, nightlife, active arts scene and abundant retail options.
"Until recently, we were operating a very diverse, manually operated parking system with at least five or six different types of parking permits including the type you display on your dashboard, or hang on the rear view mirror - as well as different systems for parking lots, street parking and resident permits,”explained Charles DeBow, Parking Manager, Borough of State College.“What we set out to do, was to create a new type of unified parking system throughout the Borough that would make the lives of our residents and visitors simpler.”
The new parking system which will soon be fully operational is a pay-by-plate parking system featuring the Genetec ALPR system combined with technologies from T2, a provider of unified parking management systems, Parkmobile a developer of mobile parking payment solutions, and Digital Payment Technologies, a developer of electronic multi-space pay stations management software.
Having recently installed Genetec ALPR cameras on their parking enforcement vehicle, the Borough's parking officers are now able to capture license plate numbers to enforce parking permits, time-limited zone rules, and parking lot checks. Using the ALPR software installed inside the car on a ruggedized laptop, the Borough's parking officers are able to easily monitor incoming reads from ALPR cameras as they go about their patrols. The ALPR system automatically captures vehicle images, time stamps and GPS coordinates-making it easier to enforce parking restrictions, while decreasing the number of parking ticket disputes and increasing compliance.
"We have only had ALPR system installed for two weeks and already the system is proving its worth,”said DeBow. “We have about 2,000 cars that are eligible to be booted at this stage and the ALPR software has already proven to be a highly effective tool at finding the people who owe us money, with very little effort…At this rate, we expect the system to pay for itself in 18 months or less."