New parking tickets

Whakatane District Council’s parking department has gone hi-tech with the arrival of two hand held ticket issuing machines.

The new machines will make it easier for Parking Wardens to issue tickets and to easily transfer the information into the Council computer system, leading to the faster processing of infringement notices.

The Councils Director Environment and Policy David Bewley says the acquisition of the hand-held machines is part of the Council’s efforts to improve and deliver a cost–effective parking management service to the community.

The two machines will end the duplication of work created by the manual ticketing system based on ticket books. In the past, each ticket had to be manually written out on site, with the need to then enter the data into the computer system when the Parking Wardens returned to the office.

The Council agreed in December 2007 to buy the machines, along with the required software, implementation and training at a total cost of $21,000 from the Parking Reserve Account, meaning there was no impact on rates.

Community Regulation Manager, Graeme Lewer says the machines are versatile being able to print tickets, take photographs and automatically transfer information to the Council computer system. This will allow wardens more time to spend on the beat rather than sitting in the office entering information into the system.