Parking Enforcement Efficiency Increases: Here’s How It Can Be Done
From simple things such as watching television or making calls to complex tasks like getting directions and making airline reservations, the technological revolution changes everything. Yet, when it comes to improving and increasing parking enforcement, many towns and cities continue to rely on old and outdated parking management solutions. Herein lies both the problem and the solution.
Why Parking Enforcement Matters
Today, more and more cities are seeking parking enforcement solutions that are not just convenient but also effective. Why is that? A necessity, parking enforcement ensures payment of service and keeps the demand for parking spaces in control. Therefore allowing motorists to find available parking more readily. In addition, it enables parking operators to get a return on their investment in maintenance activities and in parking infrastructure such as lighting, parking sensors, barriers and charging stations.
How to Make Enforcement More Efficient
Despite the importance of parking enforcement, many cities and towns continue to use old and inefficient ways to manage parking. So, what do these cities and towns need to make their enforcement more efficient? They need the modern enforcement solutions that are redefining how cities and towns approach their enforcement. We’ll discuss options included in these solutions next.
Employ Technology – Payment Solutions
The use of technology can go a long way in improving and increasing parking enforcement in a city/town more efficient. For instance, it’s high time cities replaced street-side meters with pay by space pay stations. Not only are street-side meters outdated, but they are also incredibly inconvenient. Drivers don’t always carry change with them, and the lack of cash or credit options at street-side meters means that municipalities lose substantial revenue from motorists who need parking space but don’t have the change to pay for it.
On the other hand, pay by space pay stations allow motorists to pay with cash and credits and send alerts when a given spot is in violation. Similarly, machine payments at surface lots need replacing with Pay-by-Plate which allows motorists to pay for parking space with a virtual permit before parking.
Move on From On – Street Visual Enforcement
Cities need to move on from on-street visual enforcement and quick. Why is that? Parking enforcement officers (PEOs) in vehicles conducting visual checks are not only inefficient but also unsustainable. The relentless driving around town by PEOs to conduct checks and the hours and hours of burning fuel is bad for both the economy and the environment. A tedious and slow process, on-street visual enforcement is expensive for municipalities, when compared to the revenue earned.
The solution is simple: using modern enforcement solutions that limit the need for visual enforcement. These solutions don’t only offer quicker and more consistent enforcement. They also save municipalities on payroll costs while generating more significant revenue.
Mobile Enforcement
One way to significantly improve parking enforcement efficiency is using a mobile parking enforcement solution. This solution involves an automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) camera mounted on an enforcement vehicle that scans license plates to provide real-time alerts about parking violations to officers.
For long, parking enforcement has been a headache for cities and towns. But, with the advent of modern enforcement solutions, they can look forward to a convenient, more efficient parking enforcement..
Utilizing Technology for Parking Violations
Technology continues to change the way the world functions. Parking violations and security no longer needs to include stacks of paper in drawers and handwritten citations. Now everyone sports a smartphone of some sort, and mobile tablets have become the way of the world. Therefore business tasks can be managed anywhere, anytime, making our communication with administrative and operational hubs faster than ever before.
Smart Citations
Without the up-to-date wireless technology, penalizing those who violate parking rules for traffic management is not an easy feat. Especially without enough patrol officers. Even then, manual processes and outdated syncing ability can lead to negligence with all parties involved. Now with new tablet technology for violation issuance, you can offer real-time updates for citations. This gives enforcement personnel the ability to access specific information with the latest infraction information right in the field.
In addition to the added benefits of Android features such as speech to text for license plate input, there is GPS monitoring. This can link citations to show where the majority of violations are occurring. Now your enforcement officers are more productive than ever before. With the most up to date citation history throughout the shift, enforcement personnel now have the resources to take appropriate actions and create legitimate fines.
Data Management
The functionality ViolationAdmin offers as part of the OperationsCommander Parking and Security Management Platform can be the most beneficial add-on if an organization is investing in a parking management solution. With this additional functionality, you will not only see a revenue stream from selling parking permits. In addition, easily track revenue and maintain and parking violations with automation.
Utilizing both ViolationAdmin, and ParkAdmin functionality with OperationsCommander Software gives enforcement personnel much-needed information. Data on the number of tickets issued to a vehicle, its’ number of warnings, and scofflaw databases are easily available. The best part is – tablets and smartphones are half the cost of most handhelds which add up to real savings reducing overhead significantly.
Technology to Boost Revenues
By adding additional functionality like ViolationAdmin that offers new technology to parking management processes you can help generate even more revenue for your operations. There have been many organizations utilizing newer technology for citations and have seen more significant benefits.
The number of parking tickets issued increased by 4 percent in London, even though the number of patrol officers has gone down. Seattle in the US generates annual revenue of around 18.4 million every year through the issuance of parking tickets. The proof is in the numbers and with new up-to-date technology for citations could be the beginning of a new era for your parking and violation revenues.
