Efficiency
Tech gives parking enforcement a boost
WATERLOO — A year after deploying high-tech parking enforcement technology, the City of Waterloo is considering adding a second vehicle to the fleet.
Shayne Turner, director of municipal enforcement at the city, said the specialized vehicle outfitted with four cameras that scan licence plates and tire positions has increased enforcement efficiency by nearly 50 per cent. A second vehicle could come as soon as 2019 or 2020.
“We can respond in a more timely manner and cover more ground,” said Turner. “We’re able to record the information we need to record in about half the time.”
Staff still must prepare a capital budget request if they decide to move ahead with purchasing another vehicle. That request must also be approved by council.
The first vehicle cost about $60,000. A second vehicle could be less expensive since the city al-
ready has all the software and programming needed to run the system, Turner said.
The technology is supplanting the traditional method of patrolling an area and marking vehicle tires with chalk. As a bylaw officer drives down the street, the front cameras record the licence plate of parked cars while a second set of cameras records the position of the tire valves. If the car hasn’t moved after the free parking window has closed, a ticket is issued.
The city is divided into three zones for parking enforcement and one officer patrols each zone per shift. One uses the Jeep Patriot outfitted with the cameras, another patrols the uptown parking lots on foot because the cameras aren’t capable of scanning parking permits, and the third patrols in a traditional parking enforcement vehicle.
They’ve put about 27,000 kilometres on the specially outfitted SUV and have issued 2,630 tickets since May 2017. That’s only slightly higher than the average ticket counts from previous years, Turner said. The ticket for parking over the time limit on a city street in Waterloo is $35, and $25 on a regional road.
Not only has the camera technology allowed staff to be deployed more efficiently, it’s given the city more concrete data on parking habits across the city — above and beyond the typical anecdotal complaints by homeowners who say they see the same car parked for hours on their street.
The city first expressed interest in the technology in 2011, but concerns from the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario about how data would be handled and processed slowed the process. The city eventually purchased the technology in February 2016, but more privacy concerns meant the city waited more than a year to actually deploy the vehicle.
At the time, the city touted the increased efficiency and improved safety for enforcement officers (who are no longer required to stand near traffic to mark tires) as the reason behind the investment, rather than the potential for more revenue from more parking tickets.
Information is stored on city servers if a ticket is issued. If no ticket is needed, the data is purged within 24 hours, Turner said. He said he isn’t aware of any complaints or concerns about how the city handles the data. The city was already collecting licence plate information during parking enforcement, and the new technology reduces the possibility of incorrectly recording licence or vehicle information.
Turner said there hasn’t been an increase in the number of people challenging tickets either. “It’s usually about one to two per cent, and that has stayed consistent,” he said. Drivers have 15 days to pay the fine or contest the ticket.
The Waterloo Regional Police Service, OPP and the City of Guelph use similar licence plate reading technology, and Cambridge purchased its own vehicle last year for about $70,000 to help search for vehicles overstaying the two-hour parking limit in the city cores of Galt, Preston and Hespeler.
We’ re able to record the information we need to record in about half the time. SHAYNE TURNER Director of municipal enforcement