The Challenges Pay by Plate: Your Road Map to Pay by Plate Success

The Technology Evolution Starts Here.


Key Takeaways> An indispensable technology road map to pay by plate success

> Knowledge transfer from seasoned experts with years of data and real world experience on The Way Forward to maximize the potential of this powerful technology

> 4 must know tips on Pitfalls to Avoid that could undermine your operation

> Detailed statistics on pay by plate featuring proven Use Cases on Leading U.S. Cities

> A brief History of Parking Technology, a review of The Advantages of Pay by Plate and a briefing on How Pay by Plate Works


A History of Parking Technology

1930s, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma developed the first single space meter.

1950s , San Francisco, the first pay and display meter was developed; throughout the 1990s other variations of electronic payment were developed however, still based on visual enforcement.

Between 2007 – 2011 early adopters of pay by plate helped usher in a new vision for modern parking management.


> Reflects demographic trends; 58% of American adults have a Smartphone [Pew Research Poll, 2014]; Mobile apps are used everywhere and we must adapt to parker behavior to provide better services. Integrated pay by phone and kiosk services answer this need.

> Reduces infrastructure costs. Since the plate is the common denominator it can be used to manage and enforce several types of parking operations. The parking credentials are all accessible from one central database trimming down on a ‘mix’ or ‘patchwork’ of technologies and streamlining assets using the license plate for management and enforcement.

> Improves productivity and precision with license plate recognition enforcement; gtechna offers handheld LPR enforcement for Android SmartPhones as well as traditional vehicle LPR.

> Provides access to plate recognition software and eticketing software from the same user-interface creating a unified workflow.

> Economizes on space, the rarest of assets, especially, in crowded urban centers.

> Facilitates proactive enforcement. Since all parking rights are held by the plate, a PEO can simultaneously check for scofflaws and stolen vehicles or send stealth alerts to police for criminal alerts.

The Advantages of Pay by Plate


How Pay By Plate WorksParking rights Parking

Enforcement

Pay by plate parking solutions use the license plate as the common denominator for managing a parking system. Whether pay by kiosk, phone or permit.

Parking Rights are then pushed to the central hub Command Center for enforcement of pay by phone, pay by kiosk, permits and scofflaws with the ability to process criminal hotlists.

Enforcement can be done using LPR on Android Smartphones equipped with LPR or using LPR vehicle cameras.

The Technology Evolution Starts Here.The Technology Evolution Starts Here.

Your Key to Pay by Plat

Use Cases on Leading U.S. Cities

e Success


Pittsburgh Pay by Plate Success

Pay by plate offers the option to parkers to start a parking session by phone, at a pay terminal or renew remotely using a pay by phone app.

Pittsburgh’s entire downtown area is equipped with pay by plate kiosks and pay by phone services

Pittsburgh is the first city in North America to outfit an entire urban center with these integrated services.



Pittsburgh has deployed 20 Android Smartphones running gtechna’s Officer Parking pay by plate enforcement application on Samsung Galaxy Note® 3 Smartphones.



Real-time verification processes to safeguard accuracy &up-to-the-minute synchronization of parking rights.



Getting it right the 1st time. PlateCheck can eliminate potentially

hundreds of erroneous tickets.

1% of all transactions result in erroneous plate entry due to human error. This may not seem like much but with an average mid-to-large sized city issuing on average 20 000 tickets daily, this can result in 200 bad tickets.


The implementation of pay by plate resulted in an

overall increase in transactions

and customer satisfaction.




Galveston’s Pay by Plate Success

How to create turnover of parking spaces in the region while educating locals and tourists to transition smoothly to a paid parking model.

The Quandary



The SolutionPay by Plate enforcement Pay by phone



The Benefits

Galveston decided that they wanted to go for pay by phone plate technology. The challenge was that usually, pay by plate requires pay by phone as well as meters which work together. But this particular case was very unique because the Seawall had to be protected. They cannot cut drill, anything in that infrastructure. How does a customer pay for parking if they don’t have a phone? There’s convenience stores along the complete Seawall where they can buy their parking session.


Galveston’s Pay by Plate SuccessThe Value Add of LPRFor enforcement;

Galveston uses LPR equipped SUVs which drive down the Seawall; they pick up in real time if a plate is actually paid or unpaid.

The plate recognition software and eticketing software can be accessed from the same user-interface creating a unified, user-friendly workflow.



The Value Add of LPR

3 plates per secondLPR has become an invaluable asset to enforcement because of its ability to capture high volumes of vehicles at up to 3 plates per second helping to achieve unprecedented efficiencies and heightened productivity. Galveston’s officers use 3M mobile vehicle mounted LPR cameras to monitor parking sessions.


Pay By Plate is Here to Stay

Galveston generated 700K in revenue in its first year of operation

By adopting a pay by phone model Galveston

avoided many capital expenditures turning its new

pay by plate technology into an instant revenue source to reinvest in its

treasured Seawall tourist destination.

700K in year $



34 000 Pay by

Phone Transactions = High Parker Engagement

Parker EngagementThe city recorded 34 000 pay by phone transactions within the 1st 3 months. The reaction from all motorists whether residents or visitors has been extremely positive. A win for the parkers, tourists, local businesses, residents as well as the city.



Collection RatesDue to the efficiency and reduction in tickets given in error as well as the ability to attach photos as proof resulted in less disputed tickets and a collection rate increase of 80%.



Tickets Issued in 1st 3 months

9,200



Revenue Generation in 1st 3 months

$100K



The Pitfalls to Avoid…

e Success


Pitfalls to Avoid

The information has been designed to provide a way forward for decision makers, IT directors and managers of parking enforcement and parking infrastructure in navigating some of the more technical areas: specifically, communication technologies crucial to server to server integration and exchange of data.

This section will provide an overview of potential pitfalls to avoid helping you to understand the things to look out for before purchasing and implementing pay by plate technology.


We recommend that 3Rd parties push data to our Smart Hub for optimal performance.

Focus on Proper Integration

Which side of success you be on will depend on great integration points and on how to deal with exceptions.

In the near future, you will see deployments that will fail and others will flourish.

We’ll go over some these exceptions in the following slides; we’ll identify and solve the challenges that these exceptions present as this will be the key to your successful implementation of a pay by plate solution.


4 Elements to Look Out For


4 Elements to Look Out ForWe have categorized 4 main elements that will challenge everyone in the parking market with plate based enforcement. In all cases, tickets can be given in error which we do not have to explain can be detrimental for several factors.

1.Latency (real time) 2.No Communication 3.Human Input Error 4.Machine Input Error


Latency and No Communication

Taking a closer look at latency and no communication.


Delays – The Big PictureAre you pay by plate ready? This schema illustrates potential break points whether it is a modem, a cellular network or server to server; the answer is the same; you must be prepared.


Delays - Latency

For parking enforcement latency is seen as the time it requires between a parker paying for parking and when that information is available to the Parking Enforcement Officer for enforcement. How do you handle a parking terminal that pushes transactions to a server late? Generally, no technology is perfect, things will go wrong. These issues can be caused by several factors discussed in the following slides [cont’d]

Latency [leyt-n-see] Word Origin noun, plural latencies.


Delays - Latency

1. Wireless coverage issues relating to several factors. As everyone knows from using a cell phone, sometimes moving one foot can mean being able to understand a conversation or not; this same principle applies for pay machines, wireless is not a guarantee and can be affected by reflection from buildings, the weather, foliage to name a few.

2. Wireless network availability, with cell congestion and the priority that is given to data compared to voice will impact the speed of the network.

3. Speed and availability of Internet / LAN that interconnects all systems (pay by phone, pay by plate kiosk, permits, enforcement system).

4. Pull technology interfaces not as “real time” as push technology. It is more efficient for the payment manufacturer to push a transaction to enforcement instead of the enforcement constantly requesting “do you have a new transaction”.


Delays – No Communication

No Communication - A system or interface is down which will add to latency. No communication meaning that a system or interface was affected and could not communicate, meaning that the parker is seen as violating during the time the system was down [cont’d]

No Communication [kuh-myoo-ni-key-shuh n] Word Origin noun


Delays – No Communication1. Wireless network not available so in this example a pay by plate kiosk is in a

situation of no communication because the wireless network is not available.

2. Internet / LAN or interfaces that interconnect systems (pay by phone, pay by plate kiosk, permits, and enforcement) is partially or completely down.

3. Parking rights payment method is not a real time system. Some systems could have been designed for batch type communication meaning that the information is sent periodically and not immediately when a transaction is done. To better illustrate, here is an example: if a pay by plate kiosk accepts your payment you would expect that the payment transaction be sent in real time. Some kiosk machines on the market are not real-time machines. Meaning that the payment transaction that was accepted has not necessarily been transmitted. So, in essence the kiosk accepts the payment even before any communication attempt was done. If the machine does not accept the credit card payment because there is no communication, that would make it a real time machine.

Latency/No Communication Recap


Latency/No Communication Recap

[CONT`D]

Human Input Error

`1B2 53B

2B1 53B

Human input error occurs when the parker or Parking Enforcement Officer (PEO) is in error. Human input error or transposition will be seen more from the parker input at a pay by plate kiosk machine. Cities that use pay by plate kiosks should calculate an average of at least 1% error. Furthermore, this error does not improve over time; it actually degrades. With the years of experience we have implementing these technologies we have also noticed that PEO’s can make typing errors; long hours, not paying attention, and bad lighting are some of the many contributing factors that translate to input errors. These errors must be accounted for; in a city the size of Pittsburgh, for example, this could account for over 200 bad tickets a day.


Machine Input ErrorRead rates typically range from 85% to 95%. Machine input error is categorized as such because it is not the computer making a mistake more than it is the OCR pick up that is in error. LPR OCR stands for optical character recognition and it is the method to translate plate numbers into digital characters. Several things can lower the read rate of LPR like weather (rain, snow or road salt on the plate), lighting, type of plate and color of characters.

License plate recognition from fixed to mobile and handheld are not a perfect science.



The Way forward…

e Success


The Way Forward- Latency

Certain problems with latency will always exist. The question is how will enforcement solutions adapt to various latencies?



Decide if a grace period will be given to parkers.

#1

The following 3 slides outline factors to consider when implementing a pay by plate system to ensure it is well adapted to latency events


The Way Forward- LatencyThis table provides statistics on average latencies from a 1 month sampling from two different cities and manufacturers.

As can be seen the majority of latencies occur within 1-minute based on data from pay by phone & pay by kiosk transactions. It is therefore important to plan business rules accordingly when considering a grace period.

Pay by Kiosk

Pay by Phone



Enforcement Software Performs a ‘last check’ before a ticket is issued which provides the PEO a last verification of parking rights

#2



Parking rights needs to be pushed and not pulled from the pay by plate system to the enforcement piece to ensure the fastest transaction time. Also, no middleman should be introduced; anything that can slow down the transaction should be removed.

#3


The Way Forward- Eliminating No Communication

No communication refers to any parking transaction that has not been properly transmitted. The following slides present solutions to counter a no communication scenario.


For a kiosk that has not communicated within a certain time, a geo-fence is placed around the perimeter that automatically shows all cars parked within that area “as paid”.

#1

The Way Forward- Eliminating Communication Errors


You do not want to show that an area has issues because enforcement personnel will not go in the area to enforce. The idea here is to show parkers that the parking area is still being enforced which will encourage payment at the kiosk. No communication for the kiosk is captured through the interface of the manufacturer of the pay by plate server. Once communication has restarted the “paid” is removed for real time parking rights.

#1


CONTINUED


Use a “*keep alive” mechanism to monitor servers, networks and hardware or software interfaces. If any zone is impacted a “paid” status is displayed.

#2


*A keep alive (KA) is a message sent by one device to another to check that the link between the two is operating, or to prevent this link from being broken.



Enact an auto-void mechanism to shield parkers from tickets that have been issued in error. Auto-void works in real-time to provide customer service agents with the data they need to serve parkers who may call in asking about the ticket.

#3

Introducing Auto-void



If a parker calls customer service to enquire about a ticket issued in error, customer service agents are empowered with the right information immediately turning a technical issue into another opportunity to delight the customer.

#3

CONTINUED

Introducing Auto-void


The Way Forward - Human and Machine Errors

The problem with a lot of pay by plate parking terminals is that about 1 percent of customers will input the incorrect plate number. What is meant by this is that oftentimes the parker does not even realize it, but he is introducing an invalid or incorrect character into the parking rights system. The following slides look at what happens from an enforcement point of view and how to address errors before it becomes a major problem.

Introducing PlateCheck


The Way Forward- Human Input Error

To account for transposition errors, PlateCheck uses error correction

algorithms to cross-check for potential matches eliminating wrongful ticketsWhen a plate is entered the wrong way by the Parker on a pay by plate kiosk, that human error entry is pushed to the enforcement solution [cont’d]



The Way Forward- Human Input Error

With PlateCheck, transactions are always validated for human error using an error correction algorithm in the event a parker mistypes her license plate number. Typos are cross checked with potential “matches” to avoid wrongful tickets. All one digit errors are corrected 100 percent of the time.



The Way Forward- Machine Error

When an LPR vehicle, handheld LPR or fixed LPR are used, OCR misreads will happen. gtechna’s enforcement solution has developed methods to reduce these misreads using the same PlateCheck algorithm. This improves positive ‘hit rates’ of LPR to over 95%.




What’s next…

e Success


Your Key to Pay by Plat e Success

The good, the bad, the ugly Weigh your options; consider the facts presented today



> Increased frustration adoption of the technology will suffer

> Parkers will complain > media will spin it

> revenues will go down

Lack of preparati

on=

The only way to make pay by plate technology reliable is by adding technology that performs automatic checks and balances and by purchasing from the right manufacturers. Otherwise, there will be a lot of frustration and adoption of the technology will suffer. Parkers will complain, media will spin it, revenues will go down.


Your Key to Pay by Plat e Success The Good News

The good news is that all these challenges can be overcome. Like most things, it is in the details.

It is the little things that make a difference, but these “small” items are not small. Unless someone has years of experience and has actually run into these issues first hand they will not understand the importance of it. Someone saying they have an interface is nice, but how robust is the interface, will it adapt to a ‘no communication’ event?

Past technologies like pay and display did not have these challenges because computer communications were not needed. No one had to worry about these issues. However, pay and display had its own set of problems related to dependency on visual enforcement.



With the right knowledge and an experienced team to move forwardyou can build your pay by plate tool kit now and maximize Pay by Plate’s revolutionary potential

Today, we are faced with new challenges and we need to ensure that the right tools are in place to overcome them. But as systems get smarter and real time communication is required you must ensure that your system is designed for every scenario.


Get the Challenges of Pay by Plate White Paper

Thank Youwww.gtechna.com

Scan QR to Download White Paper

The Challenges Pay by Plate: Your Road Map to Pay by Plate Success

Technology

technology evolution

advantages of pay

plate parking solutions

integrated pay

pay terminal

plate recognition software

parking session

parking credentials