A permit is an entity that defines a single parking permit holder. Each permit holder is characterized by a category (permit zone), a license plate number, a license issuing state, and optionally, a permit validity range (effective date and expiry date). Permits are used in both city and university parking enforcement.
The permit entity belongs to a family of methods used by AutoVu™ to identify vehicles of interest, called hit rules. Other types of hit rules include hotlist, overtime, and permit restriction. When a plate read matches a hit rule, it is called a hit. When a read fails to match any permit loaded in the Genetec Patroller™, it generates a permit hit.
Permits in City Parking Enforcement
In City Parking Enforcement, you create the permit list and configure its basic properties, but you do not need to define a parking lot or permit restriction. It is the city or municipality that decides when and where the permit is applicable. The patrol vehicle operator chooses which permit to enforce in Patroller based on the parking rule signs displays on the street.
Permits in University Parking Enforcement
In University Parking Enforcement, you create and configure a permit list the same way you would in City Parking Enforcement, but you also need to assign permit restrictions and parking lots to create an enforcement “zone” that is downloaded to Patroller. This additional configuration is needed because the patrol vehicle is monitoring individual parking lots, not city streets with specific regulations already in place.
Shared permits
A permit list includes a field called Permit ID, which allows different vehicles to share the same permit by having the same Permit ID value in the permit list’s source file. For example, a car pool permit could be shared between several vehicles. Each member of the car pool takes a turn driving the other members to work or school, therefore each member needs to share the same permit to park.
However, the permit still applies to one vehicle at a time. For example, if all four members of the car pool decide to take their own vehicles one day, they can’t all use that car pool permit to park at the same time. Patroller allows one vehicle with the car pool permit to park (the first license plate detected), but will raise a Shared permit hit for every other vehicle seen with the same permit.