Parking and Security: Town of Perth – Ontario
| Industry | Municipal |
| Organization |
|
| Location | Perth, Ontario |
About The Town of Perth
The Town of Perth in Ontario was originally established as a military settlement in 1816, shortly after the War of 1812. Many of the first settlers were military veterans from France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Scotland or Ireland and due to their service, they were offered land in return. Furthermore, many of the settlers were stonemasons and their work can still be seen and appreciated today. Perth is proud of their heritage buildings and general town feel and it is one of the draws to the area.
Client Overview
Located on the Tay River, southwest of Ottawa, Ontario in Lanark County. The town population is 6,000 with over 3,000 private homes.
Parking & Security Challenges
- link violations to municipal court process (KEY)
- revenue generation (KEY)
- merging parking operations (KEY)
- ensure a high quality of service
- track temporary parking allocations
- issue and track violations
Technology Solutions
The Town of Perth wanted to use OperationsCommander (OPS-COM) to expose self-managed parking and violation management in the community. Most noteworthy in the installation was the ability to easily push violation records to the Provincial Court CAMS (Court Administration Management Software) for processing automation.
In addition, allowing by-law enforcement access to data remotely and exposing the ability to virtual chalk vehicles made the system appealing to staff and management.
The Perth By-law office was dealing with an old technology solution with dated handhelds. As a result, there was no integration to a parking database and a complex set of manual processes for appeals, paying fines, and buying permits.
The process to bundle information to send to court for unpaid violations was also tedious and administration heavy.
OPS-COM parking and security platform
- brings together or replaces legacy parking applications
- fully customizable to support client processes
- additional revenue comes from parking enforcement
- enhances inner-office communication
- reporting that interlinks the overlapping areas of parking and enforcement
ParkAdmin for parking management
- generate revenue from self-serve parking
- allows users to self-manage parking and payments
- used to audit parking lot usage
- Bylaw enforcement
- Court automation; including financial resolution
ViolationAdmin for parking enforcement
- allows users to pay and dispute violations online
- remote data access using Android handhelds
- support remote sharing of virtual chalk information
- virtual chalking and violations with context imagery
Parking and Security Project Results
Especially relevant to the implementation was the ability of the OPS-COM parking and security platform to scale. As a result, OPS-COM proved that it could replace their dated system and be a modern tool that would support expansion over time.
With an ability to easily (virtual) chalk vehicles patrol staff had a better and more consistent method for tracking parked vehicles that were overstaying their free parking allotments. The finance staff was pleased with the new comprehensive reports which offered clear operational insight and an ability to easily export data to standard desktop tools.
Resulting Benefits
- Bring together or replace old legacy parking systems through one simple cloud-based interface
- Improved parking and bylaw enforcement with data accessible in the field
- Simplify the creation of a pay model around previously ‘free’ parking
- Allow staff to interact with data and communication tools as a single solution
- Court automation with data tools that export directly to the local court system
- 91% of all tickets paid in Year 1 of their install
Future
- We are working with the Town of Perth to help them leverage additional revenue options such as event parking
- Evaluating the cost of upgrading their pay-by-space meters to pay-by-plate for more efficient temporary parking management
- We continue to work with The Town of Perth to deliver an efficient and streamlined process for parking enforcement
