CHARLESTON — Two little white cameras mounted like antennas atop an unmarked black Chevrolet are helping the city ticket more cars violating parking regulations — and the technology could be expanded next year.
Since March, this vehicle has been driving the peninsula’s residential areas, automatically scanning the tags of vehicles parked in the public right-of-way areas of residential neighborhoods.
It’s allowed the city to check 600 percent more license plates each day than was possible when the only option was for employees to scan each plate by hand, according to Michael Mathis, the director of traffic and transportation.
When the system identifies a car that’s not registered to a residential parking district and has overstayed the time allotted for visitors, it flags that for employees to review.
The city immobilized 430 percent more cars with boots and windshield devices, called barnaclesduring the first few months it used the technology compared to the same time frame in 2025, Mathis said.
Employees issued 19 percent more citations and increased revenue by 30 percent during the same time period compared to 2025. The increase in revenue could be higher than the increase in citations because of late fees or how different violations can correspond to different fee amounts, Mathis said.
“It’s very useful to us,” Mathis said in September while presenting to the committee that is working on the upcoming budget.
The city would prefer cars to comply with regulations so citations aren’t necessary, Mathis said. Having the technology allows staff to cover more ground, identify violations more quickly and spend more time addressing other concerns, he added.
“Better parking management helps improve access for our city residents, visitors and businesses and ensures that parking spaces are being used as intended,” Mathis said.
One of the city of Charleston’s unmarked black Chevrolet vehicles has two smaller cameras positioned on top of its roof, like antennae. The cameras read license plates and identify when a vehicle has been parked in a permitted residential area for too long.
He’s asking the city to allocate nearly $117,000 in 2027 so the department can deploy another vehicle with the technology.
The city already paid Delaware-based corporation Park Loyalty Inc. nearly $56,000 last October to enter into a contract for the mobile automatic license plate reader technology. It will spend another $24,600 over the next two years of that contract.
Revenue from cars that pay to park legally or are ticketed for parking illegally is a useful part of the city’s budget.
In 2025, the city issued more than 120,000 parking tickets that brought in nearly $3 million, according to information included in its current operating budget. On top of that, the city generated about $4.7 million in revenue from people who paid at parking meters and metered parking lots.
The money this technology would bring in would outlive the costs needed to implement it, council member Mike Seekings said in response to Mathis’s budget presentation.
“This certainly pays for itself,” Mathis agreed.
A draft of the city’s 2027 operating budget will be finalized in mid-November, the city’s CFO, Amy Wharton, has said. The budget will be presented to City Council in December so it can begin at the start of the calendar year.
How does the technology work?
The contract gives the city access to hardware and software.
The cameras are set up so that the angle fits recommended specifications for “optimal license plate capture,” and the plate fills more than half of the frame, contract documents show.
The technology can be configured so that “hotlists” of license plates that are associated with “wanted individuals, stolen vehicles or other vehicles of interest” can be flagged, according to the contract.
A mobile license plate reader car was parked in a garage with other city of Charleston vehicles on Oct. 6, 2026. This technology helps staff identify when vehicles violate parking regulations.
The city is only using the system for parking enforcement, according to spokesperson Bay Sheehan. She said the technology “operates independently” from other agencies, including the Charleston Police Department.
“It flags plates only for parking-related issues, such as unpaid citations or vehicles without a required residential permit,” Sheehan said. “It is not connected to police systems and is not used to identify stolen vehicles or other law enforcement matters.”
Once it’s installed, city employees can power up the system each day from a mobile data computer inside the vehicle. Any time it alerts officers that a vehicle is violating parking regulations, the human employee is expected to visually verify the information, the contract says.
These employees can touch the “end shift” button when they’re finished. This downloads “all captured license plate data” onto a thumb drive that they can remove from the in-car computer and download onto another designated computer, according to the contract.
The system only keeps photos of vehicles that are found to be in violation of parking rules, so that the images can be used as evidence if someone appeals a citation, Sheehan said.
The city keeps images of license plates that violate rules “in perpetuity,” regardless of whether they were collected from the mobile camera or from a hand-held scanner, Mathis said.
Records show Park Loyalty isn’t obligated to maintain any data for more than 60 days after the contract ends. It says it has policies and procedures that protect the confidentiality and integrity of any data against disclosure, improper alteration or destruction.
Source: www.postandcourier.com
