One thing is certain about the new automated system used by Waterloo’s parking enforcement officers: It makes them more efficient.
This spring, the city introduced a new system allowing officers to scan licence plates from their enforcement vehicles.
Enforcement officers had previously used the so-called “chalk and walk” method, which involves marking parked vehicles with chalk and is still in use in most municipalities in Ontario.
Now, they’re using a computerized system that uses cameras to log the identifying information and GPS co-ordinates of parked vehicles.
“(With ‘chalk and walk’) it might take me 10 minutes to do a street that’s got 40 to 50 cars on it,” says Johnny Bell, a city parking enforcement officer.
“With this system … it might take a minute to do the same job.”
That time savings allows Bell and his colleagues to move more quickly between streets and neighbourhoods, allowing them to blanket more of the city than they were able to before.
Shayne Turner, the city’s director of municipal enforcement services, says 1,600 parking tickets have been issued since the automated system was put in place.
“It’s too early to tell whether or not there’s an increase or decrease in the total number of tickets,” he says.
In addition to making officers more efficient, Turner says, the new system makes their data collection more accurate.
While officers are spending less time out of their vehicles, where they might get flagged down by passersby with questions about the city, Bell says that seems to be offset by people walking up to the city’s new, distinctive enforcement vehicles.
“There’s still plenty of interaction,” he says.
The city currently has one SUV equipped with the technology. It came at a cost of $60,000.
With reporting by Katarina Milicevic
