Obtaining a parking permit in Hoboken just got a little easier.

The Hoboken Parking Utility announced the public launch of its new

, allowing residents, businesses, and visitors to conduct their parking business over the Internet.

The system will be available to users 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

HPU Online will allow residents and businesses to renew their parking permits or purchase visitor permits without needing to visit City Hall. Documents can be uploaded and most permits can be downloaded and printed out at a person's convenience.

“Residents can now go online instead of standing in line to get their parking permits,” said Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer in a statement. “We want to make city government as accessible as possible, and this is just the latest of new initiatives we will be announcing over the next few months to bring even more services to residents online.”

The system, which will initially allow for the purchase and renewal of resident parking permits, will expand to cover other products over the next few weeks.

"For far too long, whether it's a fair opinion or not, residents have had a consistently bad feeling about the way parking permits are issued and sold at HPU," said Transportation and Parking Director Ian Sacs, "With this system, everything is spelled out, transparent, consistent, and documented, guaranteeing that every customer is treated fairly and equally with the same rules each and every time."

The new system was soft-launched last week as part of the resident parking permit renewal process. Nearly 1,000 residents have already signed up since the launch.

The resident parking permit renewal deadline (to get documentation in either online or by mail/walk-in) is Feb. 15.

Seniors may now sign up using the new online system or renew in person. In addition, HPU will also be scheduling visits to senior buildings to assist with issuing senior permits on request. Building managers should contact Michelle Ippolito at (201) 653-1919 to schedule a time and date for this new service for seniors.

Current 2011 resident parking permit and senior 2011 visitor parking permits are still valid through the end of February.