Galveston, Texas is testing pay by plate technology to track parking. The parking enforcement system provided by gtechna, allows users to record their parking electronically, and also provides a manifest of parking plates and their status allowing police officers to issue tickets without having to rely on meters or other means. The city will be using the technology to manage parking around its seafront.
Galveston police edition SUVs are fully equipped with license plate recognition (LPR) cameras and a laptop running gtechna’s license plate recognition software scanning up to 3 plates a second.
“With the ticketing component embedded in the LPR software, we are issuing a ticket within seconds of getting a hit; the ticketing and LPR cross reference plate data seamlessly since they are one in the same system”, commented Officer Sean Migues.
Galveston visitors over the years have parked for free. Paid parking was introduced on the Seawall in 2013 and, through some growing pains, was a success. With the risk of severe weather and the risk of defacing the seawall with meter technology, mobile phone payments (pay by phone) were considered.
The technology works on laptops, tablets and cellphones. The technology is a variation on LPR technology already in use in other cities that captures plate information during moving violations or part of crowd control and other surveillance efforts.
