Pictured above: Lead CSO Dominic LaPorta of the Palomar College Police Department checks parking permits inside one of two cruisers outfitted with new license plate readers.<\/em><\/p>\nSAN MARCOS \u2014 During the first week of the fall semester at Palomar College, some 9,000 students had bought parking permits, but virtually no one put a placard in their windshield when they arrived on campus.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in front of the Palomar College Police Department (PCPD), the usual long lines were gone.<\/p>\n
And, in the college\u2019s vast blacktop parking lots, the parking enforcement staff in bright blue shirts who once patrolled on foot were nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n
What happened instead was a rapid shift in which the campus community embraced a new digital parking system that has already saved the PCPD significant labor and costs, and saved students the headache of using placards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a game changer,\u201d said Palomar College Chief of Police Chris Moore. \u201cIt\u2019s really brought us into the 21st century. We\u2019re saving money in infrastructure costs, money in staff costs, money in maintenance costs. We\u2019re making our systems more efficient and improving our processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Permitted parking at Palomar College, like all campuses at one time, used to be a matter of hanging a current placard in the windshield. Then, in the familiar routine, the Police Department\u2019s Community Service Officers (CSOs) would walk the parking lots\u2014sometimes braving heat and rain\u2014to enforce the college\u2019s parking regulations.<\/p>\n
No more.<\/p>\n
As of this semester, students, faculty and staff are buying their permits online, registering up to five license plates (only one registered vehicle per user is allowed on campus at any given time), and paying via secure web portal\u2014all without standing in line.<\/p>\n
And officials say the best part for Palomar commuters is that, after registering, they don\u2019t even need to think about their permit, since a registered license plate is a valid permit to park on campus.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the CSOs scan the parking lots using two police cruisers outfitted with license plate readers, which are connected to terminals that flag unpermitted license plates.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easier for the user, it\u2019s easier for the police, and it saves the college money, Moore said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year, we would spend money on postage and sorting to hand-mail literally thousands of permits,\u201d he recalled. \u201cWe were spending money on postage, and hundreds of staff hours putting a permit in an envelope, addressing it to a student or staff member, and mailing it to them. This has eliminated all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2019\/09\/Parking-3-of-4-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Lead CSO Dominic LaPorta said that, for the parking enforcement personnel, the new system has made patrolling the lots for unauthorized vehicles exponentially easier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s made parking enforcement more efficient,\u201d said LaPorta. \u201cIn the past, we\u2019ve spent much more time enforcing parking, and now we can spend the time we\u2019re saving on other things\u2014community relations, talking with students, staff and visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with the student and staff permits, the college also adopted a new system for temporary parking, that allows temporary visitors to buy an hour or a day of parking at a time using the smartphone app ParkMobile.<\/p>\n
Moore said that between the new parking structure and the modernized digital permit system, the parking experience at Palomar has drastically improved for students and employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cA student can buy their permit in the middle of the night or on a weekend, for example, and I have not seen more than three or four people in the cashier\u2019s line\u2014and there used to be 100 students in line the first two weeks of school,\u201d he said. \u201cI did not receive one call during the first week of school about parking, and the overwhelming majority of feedback we\u2019ve received has been how easy it is now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Student permits cost $46 and are available through the online student portal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the implementation of a digital system utilizing license plate scanners, the Palomar College Police Department has modernized campus parking enforcement. Pictured above: Lead CSO Dominic LaPorta of the Palomar College Police Department checks parking permits inside one of two cruisers outfitted with new license plate readers. SAN MARCOS \u2014 During the first week of… \u00a0Continue Reading: Smoother parking for students as Palomar adopts new digital system<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10413,"featured_media":3757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,23,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carousel","category-features","category-home","category-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSmoother parking for students as Palomar adopts new digital system - Palomar News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/digital-parking-permits-transition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Smoother parking for students as Palomar adopts new digital system - Palomar News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With the implementation of a digital system utilizing license plate scanners, the Palomar College Police Department has modernized campus parking enforcement. 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