Issuing handwritten parking tickets is an inefficient way to issue penalties. The future is automated, and Duncan Solutions’ AutoISSUE system enables local councils and private operators to record data quickly, accurately and report on it via an integrated central database.
Automated compliance applications greatly increase efficiencies.
It’s a simpler, more effective way of managing parking compliance than relying on a paper system, which can lead to errors. For more information on the benefits of automating compliance, we spoke to Jamie Tann, Manager of Health and Public Safety at Mount Barker District Council.
Efficient expiation through AutoISSUE
“We had been working with a paper system for parking compliance for a long time,” Jamie explains. “But it becomes frustrating and inefficient. You occasionally get mistakes like wrong addresses or street numbers on expiation notices, and a paper-based expiations made customer service slow – which is the last thing people need when they’re dealing with a parking ticket.”
After consultation with Duncan Solutions, Mount Barker decided to use the AutoISSUE system for their parking compliance. This included:
- Providing the parking staff with Android devices to record data.
- Equipping them with lightweight portable Bluetooth printers to issue tickets.
- Establishing a comprehensive back end management system for the storage and reporting on all their parking infringement data.
By automating many of the parking compliance processes at Mount Barker, officers (and the wider council) have seen some fantastic benefits.
AutoIssue offers a large variety of modules to facilitate officers’ and rangers’ daily work.
“AutoISSUE gives us much greater efficiency, much better time management and it gives us a lot of consistency with our expiation process,” Jamie adds. “Drivers get all the information they need quickly and clearly, while our team don’t have to double-handle data or manually put it into our database.”
The data is already pre-populated to save your teams time.
“It’s also been excellent for our customer service. If people have queries about infringements, we can always quickly come back to them with the information they need. In a paper-based system, we just couldn’t guarantee that level of service.”
Save all the evidence you need on your phone.
Since installation four or five months ago, Jamie believes it has been an extraordinary success – and the first step on a much larger journey of implementing smart technology at a local government level.
Building smart technology for better working relationships
At first, Jamie noted there was some resistance within the council to digital expiation implementation.
“While paper systems were frustrating, there was some push-back on trying something new. People are often used to doing things a certain way, but now that it’s been in operation for a few months everyone is absolutely on board with AutoISSUE.”
“Duncan Solutions have been a big part of that. We had an extensive, in-depth dialogue in the build-up to implementation where they showed us exactly what we could do to improve our systems, and the benefits that would bring.”
“Our team had a lot of questions about how it worked and what kind of improvements we could make, and Duncan were on hand to answer each and every one. They ticked all of the boxes from the outset and had a great, cost-effective plan for us – it was a bit of a no-brainer to work with them.”
As one of the fastest-growing parts of South Australia, Mount Barker District Council knew they needed to improve their systems to keep pace – and while AutoISSUE has been a big improvement for them, Jamie believes there is plenty more to come.
“We’re still bedding down the systems, and this is the first step in implementing mobile tech for our parking. But once everything is settled, we’ll absolutely be looking at what else we can do to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. I think this has been the start of a pretty good relationship.”
AutoISSUE is just one of many ways that councils and operators can automate their parking to make things easier for both consumers and compliance. For more information on how we can help, contact the Duncan Solutions team.
