Santa Barbara County has already introduced four vehicles with license plate readers. By the end of the year, the county aims to have four more of these vehicles on the road as part of a series of changes being made to the city’s downtown parking program.
Highlights
- Four additional license plate reader vehicles to be deployed by year-end to boost parking enforcement.
- New tech allows patrol vehicles to share real-time data and replace tire chalking.
- Pilot pay-on-foot kiosks are coming to the Funk Zone as part of wider downtown parking upgrades.
Changes Aimed at Increasing Compliance on the Street
The four SBPD vehicles that are currently operating in the county, read license plates and issue tickets to any vehicle that has been parked longer than 15, 75 or 90 minutes as per the zone. This practice has replaced the earlier practice of chalking tires. If a vehicle is observed exceeding its time on the street, police officers place a ticket on its windshield.
These license-plate readers will also patrol neighborhoods that hold residential parking permits. Commander Chris Payne said, “We are trying to work with downtown parking to clean up some of the time zones, but also the residential permit areas are going to be transferred to a licensed plate permit as opposed to a hang card.”
Moreover, the technology on these vehicles will also let vehicles communicate with each other. If any one patrol car is driving down the street, electronically chalking a car will allow them to share that data with other license plate reader vehicles. True Pinner of the Downtown Parking Committee expressed great excitement for the new technology that will enable data sharing between cars, calling it “a big help.” He went on to add, “That seems like a huge advancement.”
In addition to the new fleet of vehicles with license plate readers, the city also plans to install a pay-on-foot parking system kiosk at a lot on Helena Avenue in the Funk Zone. This pilot program might see replication in case of successful implementation. The two projects are aimed at increasing enforcement of downtown parking limits and ensuring better compliance…