On February 17, 2023 the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee (FERC) discussed an item regarding technological capabilities to complement and enhance the operations of the Parking Department including issuance of citations and preventing the abuse of disabled parking permits. Representatives of Pave Mobility, a technology company that offers a camera-based license plate recognition system for data collection and parking payment enforcement, were recognized and shared information about its system.

Commissioner Arriola made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Richardson, to bring before the City Commission a resolution to allow a pilot program for the collection of parking payment data at five (5) municipal parking lots, three (3) of which are to be located in commercial corridors, and two (2) in residential areas. The lot located at 4621 Collins Avenue (P71) has been identified as one of the lots in the commercial corridor where the system would be installed. The pilot program would be of no cost to the City. Pave Mobility would bear all costs including installation, equipment, and integration costs. Under a pilot program, the City would assist Pave Mobility with any permit needs, as appropriate, and share data to allow the integration with City payment systems.

Data collected by the Pave Mobility License Plate Recognition system during the pilot period would be shared with the City. The data may be helpful in determining loss of parking revenue and could assist the City in making decisions to improve parking operations and revenue collections. Data collected during the pilot program will not be used to impose parking violations or fines.

Off-street parking facilities in the City consist of garages and parking lots. Parking garages are gated, requiring patrons to pay the parking fee for the gate arm to rise and allow the patron to exit. Conversely, parking lots are not gated and are enforced by Parking Department enforcement officers. Officers use hand-held devices to scan vehicle tags and obtain payment information. Non-payment, as determined by a scanned vehicle tag, results in the issuance of a parking citation by the Parking enforcement officer.

In accordance with federal, state and county statutes, parking fees are waived for vehicles displaying a disabled placard. Placards are issued to a person and are not associated with a vehicle license tag. Consequently, when enforcing a parking lot, the officer must check for disabled placards.

The Pave Mobility License Plate Recognition system would involve cameras placed at parking lot entrances and exits. The system proposes to  track entry and exit times by vehicle tag and compares the information to payment records. The system proposes to identify parking activity as compared with payment activity and can generate data regarding uncollected parking fees. Although this technology does not have the capacity to identify vehicles with disabled placards, data collected will allow evaluation of lost revenue; the system may also help with identification of scofflaws and stolen vehicles.   

The Administration recommends approving this pilot as proposed, at no cost to the City.  Any future implementation would require a competitive process.