UAlbany Introduces Virtual Parking Permits

By Mirai Abe | September 8, 2025

Photo Credit: Mirai Abe / The ASP

Students at the University at Albany are no longer required to purchase a physical parking sticker starting this semester. Physical stickers have now been replaced with virtual passes which allow a car to be identified by its license plate. 

With license plate recognition (LPR), visitors, students, faculty and staff are now recorded electronically in the system when parking on campus.

Purchasing an annual permit, updating a license plate information, requesting temporary permits, and paying citations can now be completed using UAlbany parking portal– without the need to visit the Parking & Mass Transit Services office. 

UAlbany’s Parking and Mass Transit Services are confident that the installation of LPR, which has been in progress since 2019, drastically improved their management efficiency.

“The previous permit process was slow, manual and especially difficult during high-demand periods like August, September and January,” said Jason Jones, the director of Parking & Mass Transit Services, in an email interview to the ASP. “At our peak, we could only process about 20 permits after 12-hour days.”

“Even with early registration efforts in June and July, we’d still receive over 5,000 requests just before the semester started, creating a backlog that took weeks to clear,” Jones said. “That led to long hours for our staff and a frustrating experience for students, faculty, and employees alike.”

The inclusion of the technology will help the parking staff spend more time on customer service, allowing them to perform their duties more efficiently and effectively– but the benefits of LPR extend beyond the management efficiency. 

Although the rule that parking permit holders can park only one vehicle at a time remains the same, they can register up to two license plates by paying applicable fees, according to the Parking and Mass Transit Services website. In addition, they can add a temporary vehicle for up to 10 days a year without charge when they have an abrupt need to park a different vehicle. 

LPR can also enhance the safety of parked vehicles and their drivers. The replacement of physical parking stickers with virtual passes can prevent the loss, theft and forgery of parking permits.

To maximize the convenience of newly adopted LPR, parking lot users must adhere to two parking rules however. 

First, parking users have to park their vehicles so that their license plates are viewable from the driving lane. The newly introduced LPR system verifies vehicles on campus by capturing a photo of each vehicle and its surroundings and another photo of the vehicle’s license photo. To avoid any citations or the system’s errors, license plates must not be covered or hidden as in accordance with New York State law.

Some jurisdictions, such as Pennsylvania, do not issue front plates. Such vehicles without front plates need to be parked “nose-in” or with the front of their car faced away from the driving lane.

Parking and Mass Transit Services said that the introduction of the new LPR system has been both “meaningful and rewarding” so far.

“LPR is not just a technological upgrade,” Jones said, “but as a step toward a more welcoming, accessible experience for everyone.”