Overcast skies and chilly temperatures brought throngs of people to East Hampton Village's commercial district on Saturday afternoon, and as they passed the time shopping, dining, and doing errands, the village's high-tech parking enforcement vehicle scanned the streets to make sure they hadn't overstayed their welcome.
The car, outfitted with four roof-mounted cameras and a computer loaded with license-plate-reading software, is one of the linchpins of the village's new paid parking scheme. As the car moves through the streets and parking lots, the cameras scan every license plate instantaneously, and the computer cross-references them with the parking regulations for a given area, and a database of users of the ParkMobile payment app.
Since the village started charging for parking in the Reutershan and Schenck lots last month, humans have been confused about the regulations, but the computer is programmed to know all. It knows that a maximum of three hours of parking is allowed between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. It recognizes the license plates of village residents who have beach passes or have otherwise registered their vehicles with the village, and understands that they are allowed three hours of free parking. All other visitors are allowed two hours of free parking without having to log into the app, but must pay $10.30 for a third hour. The village plans to install cameras at the entrances to the lots, and, at that point, drivers will have to leave the lot and return to begin a new free parking session, but, as of now, re-parking in a different space will do the trick.
The computer knows that only one hour of parking is allowed on Main Street and Newtown Lane, and it can identify the cars whose owners have paid for a parking pass at the beaches, and for an overnight stay in the long-term parking lot.
On Saturday, Kristen Lorell, a traffic control officer, was driving the vehicle through the commercial district, and Sgt. Matthew Morgan, who helped oversee the implementation of the parking enforcement system, was in the back seat. After having earlier scanned the parked cars, Ms. Lorell was making a return trip to see if any had exceeded the parking limits. On the way from the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street, the computer emitted a beep every time the cameras picked up a license plate, that is to say, constantly, but it wasn't until right before Babette's on Newtown Lane that it emitted a siren sound, an indication that a parking violation had been detected. The culprit? A Mercedes that had been parked in the same space from 12:10 p.m. to nearly 3:59 p.m. Two side-by-side photos that clearly showed the car in the same spot appeared on the computer screen, but by the time Ms. Lorell had analyzed the photos, and printed out an $80 ticket, the offender had driven away.
Because of the size of the 314-space Reutershan lot, it is the site of the most violations, Ms. Lorell said. Within seconds, the cameras spotted a Volvo that had been parked there for four hours. When Ms. Lorell and Sgt. Morgan analyzed the photo, it was an oil stain on the pavement that provided the telltale sign that the driver was in the same space. A Nissan in the lot for more than six hours also received a citation, but other cars that had exceeded the time limit had gotten off scot-free because the photographic evidence that they had been in the same spot was not conclusive. "If we're not 100 percent sure, then we don't give a ticket," said Sgt. Morgan. "We give people the benefit of the doubt."
The license-plate-reading technology allows Ms. Lorell to monitor the entire commercial district for parking violations in about 30 minutes, she said, far faster than when T.C.O.s had patrolled the streets on foot armed with chalk. The one downside to using a parking enforcement car, she said, is having to navigate through traffic, and find a parking space before being able to issue a citation.
The photos accumulated by the system are downloaded to a server, and used as evidence in court when someone challenges a citation. Having a record of cars in the area may also be useful for leads on other crimes under investigation, Sgt. Morgan noted. "It's a really good system," he said. "The technology is really good."
