Parking Ticket Computer

 I made the choice to take a position at T2 for a variety of reasons; one of the biggest was the culture.  After one day at T2 I was impressed by what this organization has done to create such an exciting and refreshing atmosphere.  While many people have moved and changed jobs, moving into this company was like none other.  The transparency T2 provides shows great pride within the organization and it’s reflected in each associate.  In never having worked for a company that so conciously promotes culture, it has been a wild experience getting involved in T2.

I was also impressed by the industry.  At first I didn’t know what to think about access and revenue control, parking garage software and parking ticketing management, but getting more of an understanding of this 25 Billion dollar industry, I see nothing but more potential, growth and opportunity. T2 is an industry leader because of our products, and I am proud to be part of the excitement.  I never thought that working in advanced parking solutions, talking about access revenue control and permit management would be my next career move, but after getting learning more and meeting so many of our great customers at User Group, I see nothing but potential.  When the staff likes the company and the customers like the company, it creates a really special place of incredible promise.

It’s the people that make this company what it is.  It seems like in this economy, business is all about the bottom line.  While financials are important, the leadership here at T2 doesn’t forget about their roots and how vital each person is in the grand scheme of things.  I was excited to get to work today and I cannot wait to see what’s in store for me tomorrow!

When it comes to parking citation collections, New York City has a $16.7 million problem on their hands. Diplomats, it seems, do not like to park legally. New York City is home to 289 foreign missions and consulates, many of which have been issued multitudes of tickets for safety violations and blocked fire hydrants. Scofflaw diplomats, drawing on the power of their national treasuries, owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid parking tickets, and the leaderboard is impressive: 

1. Egypt: $1.9 million
2. Nigeria: $1 million
3. Indonesia: $725,000

With hundreds of diplomats swarming the city last week for the UN General Assembally, one congressionial spokesperson said, "We can only imagine how much is being racked up." 

The phenomenon has already been legislated against in Congress; current law states that 110% of total unpaid parking fines owed to NYC and D.C. are to be withheld from foreign aid and obligations. But New York remains diplomatically shorted--they never collect the missing millions.

Congress is not one of the most advanced parking solutions, and in a last-ditch effort to reign in the diplomat's debts, they are considering an alternative option: revoking diplomatic liscenses from nations with outstanding parking fines.

"If you get a ticket in NYC, you have to pay it. No exceptions," said a spokesperson. "New York City's budget is tight enough as it is, and foreign diplomats do not deserve a free pass at the expense of New York City taxpayers."

This issue calls Citation Collection Services (CCS) to mind, another T2 innovation that has helped our customers reclaim hundreds of thousands in lost revenue. Check out this free case study if you'd like to see just how significant collections can be for boosting and managing parking revenues.

Read more about New York's Parking problem here.

It’s funny how normally polite and even-tempered people can become crazy when parking their cars. The same person that will hold the door for you and say a pleasant “Have a nice day!” when passing on the sidewalk will honk, scream, and make obscene gestures if he thinks you stole his parking place. There’s just something about being in a two-ton cage of metal that makes people crazy.

We have a good car and a beater. When I drive the good car, I’m a “Park away from the crowd” kind of guy. A couple of empty spaces around me is my preference, that or give me an end spot and I’ll edge as far away from the next car so they can’t door ding my car. When I’m driving the beater, anything goes, wherever the closest spot is. It’s kind of liberating to drive the beater, I say that I don’t care about it, until the day l I saw a truck scrape my bumper trying to get into a space that was way too small for him. Then you would have thought the car was my baby.   I never did get that scratch fixed.

When I was in college (way back in the 80s), I lived in an apartment complex that never had enough parking. I was definitely driving a beater at the time, as was my best friend. We pulled in to the lot to see a new Camaro parked straddling the line, taking up two spaces. After a quick assessment, we determined that we could squeeze our small cars in on each side of the Camaro, leaving about 3 inches of clearance on each side of it. We were careful to never touch the car, but we certainly didn’t leave him room to open his doors. Later on, we heard a bit of a commotion as the Camaro owner tried to leave. We watched him crawl through the rear hatch and wiggle into the driver’s seat to leave. The next day, the Camaro was parked properly, and about a week later we met the owner and all had a good laugh about it. Now I’d be afraid I’d get shot pulling a stunt like that! 

You used to be able to buy a pad of fake parking tickets from the back of Mad magazine. They looked official enough, starting off with an official looking violation code for taking two spaces or parking poorly. Then as a person read on they found that their punishment was that the fleas of a thousand camels should infest their armpits. I never bought one of these pads, but was tempted a few times, and I’m sure I would have used them had I owned a pad.

I’ve gotten a few stupid tickets in my day too. Parking facing the wrong way on the street. I don’t remember why I parked that way, just did, and left the car there for several days. Parking too far away from the curb. I was parked between two trucks at the curb, and my car was well inside their profiles, but apparently the parking authority had a ruler. My rear tire was beyond 12” from the curb. In Indianapolis about 10 years ago, that was a $20 fine.   When I was about 16 I got a warning for doing donuts in an iced-over parking lot. The officer was actually pretty cool about it, saying he knew nobody was in the lot, but I could have hit a light pole and that would have been a mess.

Now my oldest son is driving so I’m teaching him how to assess a parking lot, who to park next to and who to look out for and to make sure that he’s parked properly, between the lines. I hope he doesn’t do the stupid things I did, but I guess everyone has to grow up. And if he parks poorly, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits.

Jim Peters
Project Manager, T2 Systems, Inc.

I just passed my four-year mark working in parking. After nearly nineteen years in banking, it took me a while to really understand. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a long, long way from being prepared to sit for the CAPP test,  but I think I can honestly say "I get it" when taking about Parking Access and Revenue Control, Parking Garage Software, Handheld Ticket Writers, and a lot of what goes into managing them.

For me, all that complexity translates back to computing systems that talk to all of those advanced parking solutions that are out there in the world dealing with all of the parkers. Even in the summer when many of T2's customers that use our software as a campus parking solution are at a relatively low volume of parkers, we're seeing around 20,000 transactions a day amounting to around a million dollars and that's just for our customers that use our hosted parking system software. A similar number run their own computer systems running T2's parking software.

Each of those transactions generated has a "footprint" on the servers that we use to host. They translate to memory usage, CPU usage, and disk reads/writes. As a geek and a numbers guy, it is absolutely fascinating to watch the metrics as the complex transactions are processed and completed. The main reason we monitor everything that goes on in our Hosting Environment so that we can make sure there's enough hardware to support all of our customers efficiently and well, but I still think all of those metrics are just plain cool.

Happy Parking.

So I was one of those folks that stood in line to buy an iPad 2. I've never been one to do that kind of thing, but this thing just looked cool to me. It is cooler than I ever expected. It has changed the way I access the online world. That got me thinking...

How many of the consumers that are accessing the parker side of T2's enterprise parking management software are using mobile devices? We took a quick and informal look at our the logs from the parker portion of our parking enforcement system and saw that a whopping 17% of our activity was coming from mobile browsers like iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. That's a lot of people buying permits, paying parking citations, and generally doing business far, far away from a desk.

If parkers can pay citations before they even pull out of the parking space where they were cited, that's a lot less Parking Citation Collections to worry about. In some cases, it means that citations are going from Handheld Ticket Writers to completed payments in a matter of minutes.

I'm going to keep watching the logs. I want to see how this changes over time. Happy parking.

As you know T2 Systems develops parking solutions. We offer software like permit management and access control, we offer equipment like revenue control equipment and handheld ticket writers and we also offer parking ticket collection services through CCS. Who do we offer those products to? Glad you asked, last year at our annual User Group conference we put together a short video concentrating on our customer successes. We did this because we wouldn't be here without our customers and we wanted to highlight a few facts and figures from them. Feel free to watch the T2 Customer Success video:

You know, we Americans have it really pretty easy...parking included. Yeah, we complain about having to pay for parking and when we don't, we complain about having to pay that parking ticket. But really for the most part, we are pretty lucky. We have technology to help us find parking spaces, automatic access control and revenue control facilities to get us parked quicker and for the most part, we have paved lots and garages.

Recently, I was in Roatan, Honduras and snapped this photo of a parking lot. I tried to be the good T2 corporate citizen and sell them a new parking management system, but they weren't biting. Maybe next time... :)

Working with Advanced Parking Solutions every day can change your perspective. I've been with T2 Systems for almost four years now and the time has just flown by. This week we were having a technical discussion about some possible enhancements to the features in the eBusiness (parker-facing) portion of T2's suite of Parking System Software and it reminded me of my first day at T2.

On my first day at T2, I got the first and only parking ticket of my life. Yeah, that's what I said. I'd never gotten a parking ticket before being hired at T2 and I haven't gotten one since. That's probably a combination of me being a conformist detail-oriented rule-follower, and living in the suburbs where there just isn't a lot of parking enforcement going on. There aren't exactly a lot of parking garages in my neighborhood.

For the record, I totally deserved the parking ticket. I parked in a two-hour zone and got stuck for a lot longer than I expected. I didn't make it back to my car for almost four hours. The parking ticket was a whopping $10. Thinking back on that now, I'm surprised how old-school the ticket was. It wasn't produced using an electronic handheld ticket writer. It was pen on two-part-carbonless paper. No parking ticket computer for them. Pure no-tech.

The really frustrating part was that the city parking solution was entirely manual. Not just the ticket writing. The whole darn thing. I had to pay $10 in cash ONLY and I had to pay it in person within 7 days. Oh, and the parking office was already closed for the day. If only they had given me a way to pay online, I'd have done it right then and there. I'd even have paid a few extra bucks to save the extra trip back to pay the fine.

At the end of the day, it just goes to show that there are a lot more places than need good parking enforcement systems and that following the rules works well for me.

I remember getting my first parking ticket - I knew it was coming long before it ever arrived on my windshield and it was gut wrenching knowing it would be there when I returned to my vehicle. 

Let's just say my keys went missing one night while enjoying a good time among friends in lovely downtown Boulder.  Thankfully I had a friend drive me home anyway, but when I went to go get my car the next morning I had no keys.  Although I desperately tried to return before the parking meter enforcement began, I wasn't able to coordinate a ride and a locksmith in time.  Reality sunk in that I'd be receiving my first ever parking ticket.

This is not a big deal, right? Now, you've forgotten where I said I was -  Boulder.  Parking tickets ARE a big deal! Ultimately I decided I should pay it and not make this a huge moment in history.  I wanted to pay online as I thought many city parking solutions allow for that.  Much to my disappointment an online payment option was not available, so I mailed in a check (on time, mind you).

Little did I know at the time it would be a foreshadow of my future career.  A year or two later I went to work for the city and was heavily involved in the implementation of a new parking ticket management system.  I worked very closely with our vendor, T2 Systems in making sure our new parking management system was successful - including offering online citation payments and appeals.  I loved working in T2 Flex and taking the trainings offered by T2 that not only increased my knowledge about Flex but also all the available reporting options.

Not a long time later I found myself working at T2!  I love sharing my personal experience working with a parking management system as a customer while introducing new concepts to our clients such as an online parking payment system (which Boulder now has - thanks to T2!).


 

Hello! I found this on a list serv and thought it was something one doesn't see too often...a poetic interpretation of language typically seen in parking enforcement.

Anyone in the Cambridge area, feel free to check it out!

Cambridge Artist-in-Residence Sees Poetry in Traffic Enforcement

 

The Cambridge Arts Council (CAC) and the Department of Traffic, Parking and Transportation (TPT) are jointly presenting a public art project from September 7 - November 17, 2010 by artist Daniel Peltz that offers a poetic interpretation of language typically used in parking enforcement.  
 

As artist-in-residence with the Traffic, Parking, and Transportation Department for a week in January 2010, the artist shadowed TPT workers and interviewed employees in a variety of roles. As a result of this experience, Peltz was "struck by the complex humanity, warmth and humor" in the staff of the department, something missing from the world of the parking regulations they are charged with enforcing.  
 

Throughout the spring, Peltz developed his project, entitled Crossing Non-Signalized Locations, into a suite of four actions that bring wonder and curiosity to the language of parking regulations: (1) several new street signs designed by the artist and placed in unlikely locations around the City for the next few months to be discovered and pondered;

(2) a re-designed parking ticket envelope that introduces a series of yoga postures for giving and receiving parking citations, inviting us to imagine a more peaceful exchange between Parking Control Officers and car owners; (3) "10,000 Excuses", a large-scale wall drawing in the CAC Gallery (2nd floor of the City Hall Annex), composed from the archive of "excuses" residents have written and submitted in past parking disputes

-- City staff and the public may choose an anonymous "excuse" and re-write it on the wall, transforming the archive into a composite portrait of life in the city; (4) a fictional parking regulation authorizing "soft-booting," in which a stuffed fabric parking "boot" is fabricated in the atrium near the TPT offices. 
 

Cars and the spaces they use are a significant feature of our City, necessarily regulated to ensure the efficient flow of urban activity.
 

The relationship between municipal authority and the public around parking enforcement is rich with expressive language and emotion. In supporting the ability of artists to offer a new perspective on our lives, the Department of Traffic, Parking and Transportation and the Cambridge Arts Council invite all residents to experience and participate in this unique public art project, Crossing Non-Signalized Locations.  

A reception with the artist present will be held at the Cambridge Arts Council's CAC Gallery (344 Broadway) on Tuesday, September 7, from 6-8 p.m. For more information, call 617-349-4389 or visit:

www.cambridgema.gov/CAC/ <http://www.cambridgeartscouncil.org/> and click on the Of, By and For Link.

So, you are a parking organization that is stuck in the 1960's handwriting parking tickets. There's no budget for handheld ticket writers for all of your parking enforcement officers, so some of them use the old ticket book to write up parking violations. Well, as you and I both know, there are often challenges with writing those parking citations; it can be difficult reading the officers' handwriting (especially if it is like mine) and the time and effort required to locate and manually input the data into the parking management system can be significant.

T2's new eTicketBook software eliminates the hassles associated with the handwritten tickets by enabling officers to issue parking citations from their in-vehicle computers and automatically upload the citation data into the T2 Flex parking management system.

Cool alert!! The new eTicketBook software also integrates with AutoVu a mobile license plate recognition (LPR) system developed by Genetec.

Wow...I have no idea what Bob Dylan was trying to say with those words of wisdom(it's a little before my time). However, I think it is pretty cool that someone like Bob Dylan would even reference a parking meter in a song. That being said, let's get to the meat of this blog...

HAPPY 75th BIRTHDAY PARKING METER! Yes, three quarters of a century ago, on July 16, 1935, the parking meter was born in Oklahoma-as was an entire industry. You see, shortly after the first meter was installed, parking tickets came around and of course parking enforcement officers were right there too-only back then, people referred to them as "meter maids".

As seen in some of my previous blogs, joining the parking industry isn't normally your first thought upon earning that college degree, but why not? We have enforcement officers. We work with governments, universities, the private sector and even hospitals. The parking industry is international-just about every country has some sort of parking controls in place. The technology behind parking is constantly being upgraded and tested including things like parking management software, handheld ticket writers, parking pay-by-phone, parking apps for smart phones and of course the new multispace parking meters.

I am pretty sure when Carl Magee developed and installed that first meter, he had no idea he was igniting this industry and in essence changing the world-some think for the better! So, thanks Carl. It is because of you I have a job. And when I tell people I work for a software company that develops parking software, I get that strange look which is always fun.

1. A parking space is like a lawsuit... once you get one you don't want to lose it.

2. Parking at the mall is like the waiting room of a psychiatrist... a collection of people seeking validation.

3. A parking ticket is like bird poop... someting undesirable that shows up unexpectedly on your windshield.

4. Being a parking manager is like a squirrel getting ready to hibernate... you've got to keep track of a zillion nuts.

5. Parking is like paint-by-numbers... results are best when you stay inside the lines.

6. A parking meter is like a pet dog... if you don't feed it then it could come back to bite you later.

7. A manual parking operation is like the BP oil spill... leakage everywhere, no accountability, and a mess that will take years to clean up!

In my last blog entry, I said I thought I should stick to what I know (technology) and not dive too deeply into the industry side of parking that many people know so much better. I'll be keeping that in mind again today. So last month I went to the IPI (International Parking Institute) Conference and Expo in Las Vegas. This was my second IPI (after a bit over three years working in the technology side of the parking industry).

After seeing everything there, I have to say that I'm proud to work for T2. I knew we had some pretty cool stuff (end of shameless plug), but it really hit home how much T2 stood out in that room. Don't get me wrong. I'm not slamming anybody. I'm just so accustomed to thinking about technology meaning servers and terabytes of storage and hosting an Advanced Parking Solution. That makes it easy to forget that a lot of the industry has nothing to do with computers and that technology in parking often has nothing to do with computers.

T2 sells Parking Garage Software, Parking Citation Collections, Campus Parking Solutions, Handheld Ticket Writers and a whole lot more cool parking Technology. That's all cool stuff and I love working with it, but how cool is it to sell a giant ice melting machine that you can drive around. I may have lots of cool servers with a bunch of cool blinking lights, but I can't push a button to melt a bunch of snow off of a parking lot. That's got to be a lot more fun than making something go away with the delete key. Most interesting to me was all of the technology in that melting machine. It (and a few other booths) made me realize that lots of parking technology has to do with fuel efficiency and reliability without having even one server. That said, I think the melter had a few blinking lights so it still made me smile.

Happy Parking!

Ok, I don't consider myself a lazy person... I like to walk, bike ride, swim; I always choose the stairs over the elevator (unless we're talking about more than 5 floors of course), and I get peeved whenever I see the same person circling a parking lot or parking garage multiple times just so they can get the closest parking space available.  I just think that's ridiculous...by the time they find something, I'm already in the store getting my stuff done!

However, I must admit that there are definitely times when I sooo want to take advantage of the new "mommy" (or should I say "parent") parking spaces that many stores and other areas now provide - even when I don't have my kids with me!  How horrible is that??  Have you seen these spaces?  They usually are indicated by a drawing on the space that shows a parent with a car seat, stroller or other contraption for transporting your children.  And even though my kids aren't with me, the car seats in the back are clearly visible.  Would anyone really see me walk out of the car without the kids?  Is there an enforcement officer walking the grocery store parking lot with a handheld ticket writer making sure that you really do have your kids with you?  Would they really give me a parking ticket or citation?

Believe me, there have been days when I'm so tired and there are clearly no spaces that are close - so I've been tempted to snag one of the "parent" spaces, even without the kids.  For those of you who may watch "Desperate Housewives", there was an episode in which one of the wives (Gabby) mis-used her husband's handicapped parking hangtag - just so she could be close and not have to walk far in her high heels.  Does my tempatation put me in the same category as her?  I certainly hope not!

Let's face it - there are times when we all want to park our car as close to our destination as possible...there are days when we just don't want to walk it.  As one who works for a parking management solution provider, I understand the importance of parking rules.  That's what keeps me employed!  Businesses, cities/municipalities, colleges and universities all need rules, and ways to manage those rules and all of us that park.  Why else would there by the need for parking system software, parking permit management systems, access and revenue control systems, and a ton of other parking management solutions?

It's because at the end of the day, we're all selfish - willing to fight, drive around, waste valuable time - and break the rules, in order to snag that coveted close parking space!  We all just might as well admit it!

A news station out in Los Angeles was doing a spot on what cars to drive where when a parking enforcement officer decides to rain on their parade. Even after being told the parking spaces were paid for, she continued to do her job and issue parking tickets. I say good for her to stick to the rules!!

Thinking back over the years it has been a long journey to where we are today and where we are headed in the future. Think about how far we have come from writing paper parking tickets. We started out using big old clunky DOS based units with serial cable connections, remember those...wow that seems like a lifetime ago. We then moved on to the palm platform based handhelds like the Symbol 1700 and the Palm 500C and thought we were in heaven! With this we could also do communications via TCPIP through a local secondary network. Little did we know that over a short few years we have escalated to more robust handheld devices that run Windows Mobile 6, have built in bluetooth, Wifi and can be used for a walkie talkie, a phone and the likes of a mini desktop computer that you can carry around with you anywhere you go.

Now that we have been using the network/tcpip method over the last several years it is time to jump once again into the future. Shazam... Welcome to the future HCS WebServices is born! What is this you ask, well I have the answer for you. In an effort to move away from the much dreaded (mostly from IT folks) FTP file transfers HCS WebServices was born! What this method does is eliminate the use of the HCS Workstation by utilizing an internet connection gained by the handheld ticket writer. This can be done via GPRS (cell service) or via bluetooth and wifi connected to an internet port in the office. A few changes to the handheld configuration menu and away you go communicating via the World Wide Web! This opens a lot of doors for you as customers because it frees up a workstation and gives the officers options for communicating from other places in the field where they may be able to get an internet connection on the handheld ticket writer.

If you would like more information or are willing to move to this new method I ask that you let support know by emailing us at support@t2systems.com and we can schedule some time to get you going! I actually would like to get all of our customers upgraded to this method of communications over the next 6 months. I believe in it and feel like it is the future for communications with the handhelds!

This letter was recently posted on one of the parking list-servs. It's pretty funny really...

As an MBA graduate student and general parking pass holder, I will provide a couple observations for consideration.

Today I parked in a reserved spot at 4:52PM.

*Strategic Differentiation*

*Professional Ninjas:* The prowess and cunning of the parking officers  is pretty amazing. He or she had time to realize my sticker was not a reserved sticker, but a general sticker; calculate the time he or she had to get the ticket written (in this case less than 8 minutes), pull out the little portable computer of scorn, type my license plate in, print, and plant the ticket with - I'm sure - a sly smirk. As rapidly as this had to have happened, I'm surprised I didn't see, hear, or smell the officer. I couldn't have been more than an inch away from the car.

*Strict adherence to policy:* As a general parking pass allows its bearer to park in a reserved spot after 5PM, your highly trained ninja officers stick to the letter of the law. General pass? 8 minutes before 5pm? Should  I give the ticket? HECK YES!!! Admirable!

*Sound Economic Logic*

 $112.50 per hour potential revenue from one reserved spot: At 15.00 per ticket for an 8 minute infraction, I conservatively calculate your potential revenue for one reserved spot to be $1125 per day. That's nearly a quarter million per year assuming your ninjas work on Christmas; which on second thought, is a no-brainer. I hate to think what your potential revenue would be at a 1 minute or 30 second infraction. As noted above, your people can certainly handle this kind of speed and accuracy.

*Additional thoughts*

*MBA*: My choosing to return to school to pursue an MBA was; lets face it, to make more money. At roughly 60K per year, my research leads me to expect a 25 to 30% salary increase when I finish. Roughly 75 to 80K on the conservative side. My plan is to start my own company when I finish in the technology sector to increase my chances at making a bit more - perhaps 100 to 150K. I hadn't even considered the parking infraction industry, but my experience today tells me the potential revenue is HUGE. Using the above rough estimates, one spot for a two year time investment is nearly 1 Million gross. Forget entrepreneurship. The secret is in 6 X 12 pavement.

*Extrinsic de-motivation*: If the rationale is to generate income for the university to provide better facilities to attract more students, you have certainly illustrated strength in at least two of these. Were I to use your logic however; I would: invite a customer into my store, have him pay an expensive cover fee, make him sweep and clean while patronizing, force him to purchase premium products that I select, make him bring his own shopping cart, charge him for pushing his cart in my store, and have him kicked in the junk by heartless ninjas when he turns to look at what's on sale next week. Then I would smile and tell him to be sure and bring his friends and remember me when he leaves. I might even send him a mailer from time to time with a beautiful scene; a river and green space; perhaps smiling bright faces; some inspirational tag on the front like: "Learning Lives on the River", or, "Remember to Support Your Future." On the back I might include a petition to submit a few extra bucks to help fund more pay-dirt pavement acquisition.

I think I'll stick to entrepreneurship in the ninja-free technology sector.

The IPI Tradeshow opened this morning and right from the start we were busy with demos of T2 Flex, PermitNow and our handheld ticket writers. This year we have two new tools to demonstrate as well. Of course, our new T2 Revenue Control hardware is creating quite a buzz on the tradeshow floor. T2 is also debuting a new integration with Genetec as well as an eTicketing solution where parking enforcement officers can write and issue parking tickets from a laptop computer.

It has been a big year for T2 Systems and we aren't even half way through...stay tuned for more from IPI.

On many occasions I will hear of the person who hit the accelerator instead of the brake when parking their car. Sometimes, this action takes them into the ice cream aisle of their local grocery store or through the windows of the car dealership. However, I had no idea parking could be this dangerous and death defying:

So is this a parking ticket or a moving violation? I wonder if they have to pay for the hole in the parking garage too? Talk about adding insult to injury!