Provo » The city's Justice Court is finding the pen is a mighty weapon in fighting parking violators.
Not just any ballpoint, mind you.
This one, from Sandy-based Velosum, is equipped with a camera and a Bluetooth connection that allows parking officers to instantaneously transmit parking citations to the court's computer system.
Using Velosum, within 90 seconds, a parking violation can be recorded, photographed and posted online.
Court Administrator Jody Meyer said it means the city can more easily collect parking fines, but people can either pay or fight their tickets on the Internet.
The system has been has helped Provo replace unwieldy notebook computers and digital cameras to write tickets for those who break the city's parking regulations.
Meyer said the old system required officers to write a separate citation for each violation, and the officer had to return to court at the end of his shift and print out the information and put it in a box to be entered later. Any digital photos were stored on computer disks, only to be printed out if the ticket was challenged.
But the nail in the coffin for the old system was its cost. The computer devices had a replacement cost of $8,000 apiece, city spokeswoman Helen Anderson said, making Velosum more cost-effective.
The system cost $25,000, and $100 a month operating fee for each phone-pen combination, and a 35-cent fee for each citation processed.
Velosum's system involves a specially coded ticket paper. The ticket is printed over a microdot pattern readable by the pen's camera, so it knows which box the officer is checking off. Data is then entered into the appropriate fields in the court computer. The camera can also read the officer's writing.
The ticket also allows the officer to check off multiple violations, saving time and paper. After writing the ticket, and taking pictures of the car and how it is illegally parked with a cell phone camera, the officer checks a send box on the paper ticket, which transmits information from the pen to the phone and on to the computer system.
The system can also notify an officer if someone has four outstanding tickets, which means the car gets towed.
On one stop, parking enforcement Officer Brad Croff had the ticket written, pictures taken and sent off to the system in less than 90 seconds, where they then appeared on Meyer's computer in the Justice Court office.
"By the time they walk out to the car, the ticket's online," Croff said.
Suzanne E. Viehweg, a Velosum sales associate, said the system is already used in 12 cities around the country. She said it allows the court staff to check records from anywhere with Internet service.
"You can be on a beach in Tahiti and know what officers in Provo are doing, " Viehweg said.
The system allows people to go online and see the ticket and the photos of the car illegally parked. The system gives people the option of paying a fine online, or filing an electronic appeal to a hearing examiner. She said almost half the people are paying their tickets online. In some cases, people pay the fine the same day they earned the ticket.
The enhanced system has improved the city's bottom line. Provo is collecting on 87 percent of its citations, compared with 67 percent two years ago. The city's records show parking ticket revenue going from $358,760 in the 2007-2008 budget year to an anticipated $660,000 in the 2010 budget.
Provo issues about 1,200 parking tickets each month.
Meyer said the system also links up with the national motor vehicle databases, allowing the city to track down out-of-state drivers. Meyer said the old system only accessed Utah records, thus allowing an out-of-state driver to avoid having to pay the fines.
The city also plans to use the technology to crack down on gangs. The system will allow officers to better track gang members and incidents, utilizing the systems ability to pinpoint locations on a Google map.
