Parking Enforcement Systems

So here is the story 

I always wanted to teach and coach.  I went to school, got a job out of college and started teaching and coaching,  In the early 80’s, enrollment declined and there were layoffs.  I was laid off in 1983.  I worked many odd jobs to pay the bills.  That included working at a department store, being a nanny (I really am not a big fan of kids), and running a convenience store/gas station. 

In late 1984, there was an article in the Allentown, PA newspaper that reported that the city was forming a new Parking Authority  to run the 2 garages the city built and do all the enforcement for the city.  Friends of mine encouraged me to apply. 

I applied and got called for an interview.  I was working for a company called Hess Gas at the time and managing the convenience store/gas station.  Hess employees all had to wear these really ugly WHITE uniforms with a green stripe down the side of the leg and the sleeve.  We had really strict rules and I was not allowed to leave so I scheduled the interview for my lunch time and went to city hall in Allentown in my lovely white Hess uniform.  I walked in and it was the Mayor, the head of our Economic Development department, the Chief of Police and the consultant for the city at the time (Barbara Chance) Barbara is one of the leading consultants in the industry today. 

My first line as I introduced myself was that I knew how important first impressions were in the interview process so I took all morning to decide EXACTLY what to wear.  At that moment, they decided I had the right warped sense of humor for a start up parking authority and was hired on the spot.  The next 23 years was ‘the rest of the story’ 

Linda L. Kauffman 

We are back from the annual T2 company meeting. The meeting was a huge success. We learned about new solutions coming from T2 including the new T2 branded parking access and revenue control hardware. This is cool, T2 Systems now has our own brand of revenue control hardware. This means we offer not only the parking industry's first unified software solution where parking operations can manage both the permits and enforcement and the access and revenue control portions of parking in one web based, fully hostable system, but we also offer the parking access and revenue control equipment in conjunction with our distributor partners. Pretty awesome, huh?!

Back to the T2 Systems company meeting. I promised some photos in my last blog, so below you will see T2 in action at the Shepherd Center. There we cleaned up a bit and installed new patios for the community.
 

Coming soon...IPI updates (and maybe some pics)..so stay tuned


 

As part of my daily activities here in marketing at T2 Systems, I scan the Internet for interesting parking stories and information. I came across this one yesterday from Reno and had to share it:

 

Meter maid Barbara Cardwell had her first memorable brush with an irate motorist when she started ticketing illegally parked cars in Reno two decades ago.

"I saw him in the (scooter's) rear-view mirror and he was running very fast up First Street, trying to catch up with me, and waving a ticket in his hand," she said. "He was yelling, 'I'm handicapped! I'm handicapped!'"

 

Running up the street waiving his parking ticket in the air yelling "I'm handicapped!"...


...I've got nothin :)

Recently I was visiting a customer site and I got the chance of a lifetime...I tagged along with parking enforcement officers. Now, some of you are saying "big deal, I do that every day." However, for those of us way, way, way behind the front lines, this was a fantastic experience.

We started out on a street with parking meters and immediately we saw that red light flashing. EXPIRED!! Yes! This is my chance to catch a parking enforcement officer in action. We jumped out of the van rather "COPS"-esque and off we go to issue the parking citation to the violator. We had to work fast, mostly because it was cold. There I was, recording his every move. Wes, the parking enforcement officer, wrote that ticket in a matter of seconds, slid the orange envelope of shame under the wiper blade and away we went, back to the van and on to the next adventure.

Our next parking ticket came on a permitted street. You know, I have no idea how they spotted the violator. I am such a novice. Anyways, the van door slid open and out we jumped, like members of a SWAT team. No permit, YESSSS! This time, Wes took a picture of the illegally parked car with his handheld ticket writer. Nice! That picture will go on to the parking citation in the parking management system which virtually makes the ticket iron clad.

After a few more tickets and a not so happy parker turned violator, we were back at the office. Wow, what a day. I am not too sure how the parking enforcement officers do it on a daily basis. My kudos go out to them!!
 

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

In the event you haven’t heard the 2010 Olympics are about to start from Vancouver BC, Canada.  One of T2 Systems customers, The Resort Municipality of Whistler, is a host city.  I was given the incredible opportunity to come to Whistler and will be your roving blog reporter from the games.   Most importantly, I am here to assist with the parking operation and support of handheld ticket writers throughout the Olympics.

I arrived in Whistler on Wednesday morning and was picked up by Sandra Smith, Supervisor of By-Law Services.  For those of you that don’t know Sandra, she is one of the most fantastic people you could ever want to meet!   She immediately introduced me around to all the staff in the office, got me settled into my own work space and equipped me with all my Olympic gear! I got a chance to visit with all the By-Law Officers as well.  The excitement over the Motorola MC75  handhelds was evident. They absolutely love them!

Whistler currently has four of the new Motorola MC75/Oneil Printer combinations that they hav­e been using for about a month. In anticipation of the extra manpower and work needed throughout the Olympics, an additional ten units have been brought up to increase their fleet to a total of fourteen.

They are expecting parking to get complicated. Simply put, there is not enough parking to go around. The eight municipal parking lots in Whistler will be used to support the 2010 Winter Games, leaving limited parking around the Village. This alone will create very limited parking, considering the enormous influx of people and vehicles that will begin arriving in the next few days.   Like chain reactions, the By-Law officers are expecting considerably more work while enforcing the limited parking and keeping the spaces available for much needed short term parking. There has been numerous additional staff deployed to the By-Law office to assist with the operation. They will be out in full force in a twenty-four hour presence to insure parking is being enforced.

So my part for the first couple of days prior to the Opening Ceremony are complete, the fourteen handhelds are setup and ready for deployment. The additional staff has been trained and ready to go.  Let’s see where the next couple of days take us as the parkers converge here in Whistler. I will keep you posted and up to date, so stay tuned! And again, Let the Games Begin!

I currently work for the Transportation and Parking office at a mid-sized university which sees approximately 80% of its community commute in and out of the school by car every day.   We currently have four times more commuters than we have actual physical parking capacity on the campus. This is a scenario that has become extremely challenging for not only the administration, but increasingly so for students who often will try to arrive on campus hours before their class just so that they can secure some sort of parking in time for their class to start.   In the first few weeks of semesters, it becomes such a tight situation on the campus that members of the community can often wait over an hour to find a space. This is problematic in many ways, especially from a safety point of view.

                As the administration, we have tried to write policy that enables parking permit holders to get what they have paid for and to simply protect their parking rights. Furthermore, we try to run a stringent enforcement operation to hinder illegal parking so that permitted parkers have enough space to park. Every time a newspaper, however, is published at the school we land ourselves on the front page and we are usually being slandered over the cost of parking, not having any free parking, not having enough space, parking enforcement being too severe, etc.  No matter what kind of customer service initiatives we have tried, how many hours we put into effective and transparent policy, what we do to update our parking technology on campus (we are still far from being 100% modern but that’s usually a funding issue) we often fail at keeping our customers satisfied and/or happy. (I’ve seen the anti-parking department Facebook groups and try very hard not to respond with wise comments!) I can’t imagine it’s because we aren’t doing enough, but it seems impossible in this industry to keep any customer happy if you are asking for money due to infractions or for the “price of real-estate”( as we are currently calling our parking capacity that falls in an urban landscape).

                So, I challenge any institution that has a multi-faceted parking operation, to bridge the gap between parking, meeting budgetary needs and providing good customer service. If you’re out there, somewhere, anywhere, S.O.S.!

I will admit it...I have attempted (very unsuccessfully I might add) to get out of many speeding tickets in my driving career. Yes, I have a lead foot and that has cost me some pretty good money over the years. I have cried. I have used my powers of female persuasion, which come to find out aren't all that persuasive.  I even hit rock bottom, I faked being sick. Nothing has saved me from the impending doom.

Parking tickets, on the other hand, I just take as a fact of life. I see the Parking Enforcement Officer coming with their handheld ticket writer and I just know what's coming. So, instead of trying to get out of it, I just accept the parking citation and move on. That's not because I work for a company that produces parking management software, it's because I just don't want to put forth that much effort to avoid the inevitable. 

This commercial, however, shows some of the lengths people will go to it avoid that horrible parking citation. I mean really...like it is all that bad. I would much rather pay for a $25 parking ticket than that $180 speeding ticket and 4 points on my license...I'm just sayin'.

I am watching "Disney's Prep and Landing" on TV a few nights ago. (Not because I have kids, but because I enjoy cartoons.) Anyways, how surprised was I to see a scene in there about parking? They even had a little elf parking enforcement officer in a "golf cart" checking parking permits and everything. Check it out:



So how far has parking enforcememt come to have a cartoon comment about it? WOW! It is pretty much mainstream now. People are beginning to realize parking departments are a necessity instead of a nusiance. Cities and universities see parking as a as a traffic management tool that has a beneficial by-product of increasing revenue in this time of slashed budgets. 
 
 

One fact these 2 didn't know prior to their attack, is that the officer is a former boxer.

Long story short - one ended up with a broken jaw and the other is a little scuffed up as well. The officer had a few bumps and bruises, but was given a long weekend to recuperate. Most of the officer's injuries seem to have come from the fact that at one point, one of the attackers used the parking enforcement officer's handheld ticket writer as a weapon. 

Needless to say...they needed a loaner handheld ticket writer.

Way to go Mr. Former-Boxer-turned-Parking Enforcement Officer!

Do you know anyone who "chose" parking as their career? The overwhelming answer is no! Have you ever wondered what people did before entering the parking world? We here at T2 Systems set out to discover what people did before coming to the parking world. We have found some interesting, and sometimes disturbing, stories. Here at T2 Systems, we have (among others):
 

• Former - and current - computer nerds
• teachers/convenience store workers
• law enforcement officers that thought parking was sooooo not cool
• cable salespeople who sold in nudist colonies

We received such great feedback from our folks internally, that we decided to "take this on the road" so to speak. We started running a promotion for our upcoming User Group conference targeting our customers and asking what they did before parking. Guess what? Not too many people decided when they were little kiddos to pursue a high profile career in the parking world.

That being said, there is something about parking that sucks you in. Whether it is the parking garages, the handheld ticketwriters, the parking citations or (and this is my personal favorite) the parking management software, for some reason, once you get into parking you don't leave all that quickly. 

I have been in parking for about 2 years now. What can I say about parking? Well it is unlike any industry I have ever worked in. The vast majority of the people in this field are very open to sharing ideas and genuinely interested in helping others succeed.  I will say tho, when I tell people I work for a parking software company, I do tend to get "the look".

Kudos to the parking peeps!

So...I was shopping in a downtown area and completely lost track of time. Needless to say, when I arrived at my car - bags in hand - I had the “Orange Envelope of Shame” on my windshield. Yep – even though I work for a parking software company - I am not immune to the parking ticket. Well, I threw it in the glove box after some choice words and went on my merry way.

A few weeks later, I received a “nasty gram” in the mail about not paying my ticket. I had completely forgotten to pay that thing. I only go into my glove box for the tire gauge and the occasional “license and registration please” speech. So, out came the checkbook and I dropped my payment – and late fee – in the mail.

You know, more parking organizations, whether they be in a city or a college/university, should employ these tactics. There has got to be gobs of unpaid parking citations out there. That money could help organizations hire more parking enforcement officers, upgrade their parking management software, or purchase new handheld ticketwriters. In all honesty, everyone could benefit from collecting on unpaid tickets during this time of shrinking budgets.

While some parking organizations collect the bad debt themselves, others outsource parking ticket collections to a collection agency. T2 Citation Collection Service (CCS) is an outside collection agency that specializes in collecting that unfound revenue. What’s cool about CCS?  The parking organization can outsource what they want and keep what they want. So if the organization wants to send the first letter reminding the offender of their citation, they can. Then when the offender doesn’t pay, the parking organization can turn it over to CCS to do the dirty work. It is just that simple. 

Long story short, if people would just pay their parking ticket on time, we wouldn’t need to employ these practices. However, as both you and I know – and is evidenced by my tardy ticket – things happen. A little nudge in the right direction can keep the revenue flowing in, especially in the current economic climate.