City of Kerava: Digital parking permits reduce abuse and make it easier to grant permits
In a city using digital parking permits, parking attendees do not have to scratch car windshields. Many municipalities and cities have decided to abandon paper parking permits and move on to digital parking permits.
There are some challenges and even problems with paper parking permits, as the parking permit can be easily falsified, even with a copier. In addition, making paper parking permits takes time and resources from other overworked officers and other persons managing permits. The paper parking permit has had to be applied for and retrieved from the municipal or city agency during office hours, which may have been difficult for many working motorists. Officials have maintained parking permits in various table programs, which have been manually searching for information and editing information, which has slowed down the process.
EParking has brought a solution to these challenges in the form of digital parking permits. The digital parking permit is an electronic parking permit in the EParking application. All you need is a parking permit to download the Eparking application and log in. You can easily manage your own parking permit through the application: the application takes care of paying, editing and dismissal.
You can apply for a parking permit at any time of the day or week in the Eparking application or browser version. The parking permit will remain in the application until it is dismissed. It is possible to attach a multiple cars registration number, which is valid one at a time. The active registration number is conveniently replaced in the application. Thus, every family or team car does not necessarily have to apply for their own parking permit, but the same permit is for more cars.
Digital parking permits also significantly reduce the workload of parking permits management officers and facilitate the maintenance of permits. Digital parking permits do not need to be printed and laminated, as parking control is based on the car's license plate scanning.
The City of Kerava has introduced EParking's digital parking permits in 2019. Currently, digital parking permits are available for different employee groups, such as home nurses and education and education staff. Through the EParking system, guests of the city also receive a digital parking permit. As a new entity, Kerava has received corporate parking permits. In addition, Kerava is planning to extend digital parking permits to resident parking. To this end, Kerava is already mapping possible areas for which digital parking permits would be available.
Mikko Rastela, a traffic planner at the City of Kerava, has been pleased with the EParking system and digital parking permits. Rastela says the workload associated with parking permits has significantly reduced. Digital parking permits also clarify the work and make it easier to investigate errors. According to Rastela, digital parking permits are much more unambiguous than old printed paper parking permits. The problem with paper permits was counterfeit: it was difficult to check the authenticity of the permit. Efforts were made to prevent abuse by renewing paper permit tags from time to time. However, this has gone away since Kerava introduced the EParking system.
Rastela says that the acceptance of parking permits is easy and fast today. Digital parking licenses have also made parking control in Kerava: monitoring is also done digitally by scanning the car's registration number, and the parking controller does not have to think about the authenticity of the parking permit.
For the reference, Mikko Rastela has been interviewed by the Kerava City Traffic Planner by email.
