The City of Clayton, MO blends a bustling business district with charming residential neighborhoods. As the county seat for St. Louis County, the City experiences fluctuations in populations on a day-to-day basis.
“Our evening population is about 17,000. Our daytime population swells to about 46,000, so that’s what really drives the need for parking management,” says Gary Carter, Director of Economic Development for the City of Clayton.
The City’s municipal staff is small, but mighty: There are three parking enforcement officers covering an area of 2.5 square miles with more than 7.5 million square feet of office space. Before switching to a digital system, the team was handwriting enforcement tickets.
“That is a lot of area for three people to cover,” says Carter. “So that was really the impetus behind the switch to technology, especially License Plate Recognition technology.”
As part of Clayton’s strategic move to overhaul its parking and enforcement operations, the City transitioned from its previous enforcement provider to Passport. This upgrade allowed Clayton to integrate License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology into its enforcement toolkit, enabling the team of three to cover more ground while increasing accuracy in identifying violators.
Additionally, the City attributes a rise in parking compliance to the convenience of offering multiple ways to pay for parking, including the Passport Parking app.
“Having the app available gives people another convenient way to pay,” says Parking Supervisor for the City of Clayton, Ron Middleton. “If it’s easier for the parkers, they’re more likely to pay and compliance goes up.”
Another benefit to digitizing its enforcement operations is the ability for violators to easily resolve their citations online: In 2023, 98% of paid citations were paid within 90 days and 87% of those were paid online.
“The switch to Passport’s enforcement solution has increased efficiency and compliance considerably, compared to the process we were using in the past,” says Carter.
Learn more about the City of Clayton’s transition to digital in the full Success Story.