Plymouth City Council selects latest Casio DT-X30 Handheld device to assist parking control.

April 3, 2012 - PRLog -- LONDON, UK, 03 April 2012: Casio Electronics Co Ltd, have announced that the maritime city of Plymouth in Devon has selected the latest Casio DT-X30 handheld device to assist parking control for its 250,000 residents.

Today, there are approximately 36 CEOs patrolling the City’s busy car parks and 53 resident parking schemes. The job is very much on the frontline with the CEOs acting as a visible force in prevention of traffic parking violations and much more, frequently directing other departments within the Council to road hazards and areas of repair spotted in the course of a shift. To support parking violations under the Traffic Management Act, Officers need to ensure they have watertight procedures and full evidence capture. So when the previous IT-500’s became obsolete, the team, headed by Mike Artherton, Parking & CCTV Manager, at Plymouth City Council, took the opportunity to fully review the market options.
Mike explains “The Casio IT-500 had certainly stood the test of time and fulfilled its job well. What we wanted to procure now was a device that would provide similar durability but was equipped with all the latest technology, like sharp image capture to ease the job for the CEOs, making the evidence process watertight. We turned to our trusted parking technology partners, Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions (ICES), not least as whichever device selected would be running their Netapen handheld software which is fully integrated with ICES' Parking Gateway enforcement software for effective PCN processing and management.”
The case was presented for budget approval with Mike providing clear business reasons that explored the full potential that a fully equipped handheld could have in the future to assist the Council’s Parking Strategy. A visit to the Parkex trade show provided the opportunity for a hands-on trial of the new Casio DT-X30, the next generation of handheld capture devices.  An evaluation unit was arranged by ICES whilst Mike gained feedback from neighbouring councils already using the Casio DT-X30. After just a few weeks with criteria satisfied, the council placed an order for 26 units to service the Officers on shift.

Training and rollout was an easy process despite the Casio DT-X30 exhibiting a new enhanced interface. Mike reports, “Feature feedback on the units in the field was instant and expected, but perhaps what we were most pleased to receive was feedback that the CEOs actually felt that using the Casio DT-X30 positively enhanced their job. In a frontline position where all you have is a notebook and a handheld device as your supporting tools, it’s critical that the Team has total confidence in the handheld. We noticed a significant boost in morale at the end of the first shifts as the processes became watertight, automated and seamless via drop down workflow menus, with no data loss.”

Top of the enhancement list were the backlit keys, cited as being easy to read, even in dim conditions; as was the 3.5 inch colour touch screen that copes excellently with both glaring sunlight and night conditions. Further leaps are witnessed in the integrated camera; which although also present in the IT-500, now features an autofocus 2 mega pixel digital camera and flash ‘always on’ feature to remove distorting glare.  The integrated camera enables higher quality photos to be taken at any time in the issue process, even at the beginning of an observation period.  And although slightly heavier, the Casio DT-X30 retains the same ergonomically friendly grip, with a solid, rugged feel. (Indeed tests show that the Casio DT-X30 can withstand drops of around 1.8m onto a concrete road surface). When exposed to extreme weather conditions, again feedback was unanimous – the new handheld performed just as well, in rain or shine, extreme cold or extreme heat and even dusty, sandy conditions.  

Battery life is also critically important to the CEOs. With no ability to boost power between 9.25 hour shifts, CEOs rely on total durability. In the past, on occasion, this had manifested that when a battery had drained, integrity of the unit’s data had not always been guaranteed, thereby negating the PCNs on that shift. The Casio DT-X30 offers a reliable 12 hour battery life and if battery failure should occur (which it hasn’t to date) the CEO’s remain confident that data gained earlier in the shift would remain intact.

Each unit is installed with ICES’ Netapen software, providing the Officers with a series of intuitive prompts to reflect the different enforcement applications.  The software highlights if any field has not been completed properly or criteria under the Traffic Management Act has not been properly secured and uploaded back to the Council offices.  All of Plymouth City Council’s car parks are mobile phone cashless parking system enabled as an alternative to Pay & Display tickets. Hence every PCN workflow starts with a crosscheck to verify if payment has been made through the ICES realtime interface. If a parking violation has occurred, the resultant PCN is then issued wirelessly on the spot.

Also installed on each device is the ICES Automatic Number Plate Recognition software (ANPR) that uses optical character recognition to allow officers to point the Casio DT-X30 at several parked vehicles without manually entering car registration detail, saving time and insuring the correct plate detail. In the future, ANPR can be expanded to cover ‘no return’ car parking within given time zones areas and can also be used to administer some of the City’s free car parks where parking is not allowed for returning vehicles.

For the future, the Mike and the team see further application potential from the device.  The Casio DT-X30 has GPS installed which the Council are currently exploring for advances in personal safety and management of the Officers.  From a Health and Safety perspective, although each CEO currently has a radio, monitoring of the GPS within the unit would provide an immediate pin-point location if a call for immediate backup was required. From a personnel management point of view, GPS would also allow for efficient and fast deployment of Officers close to any reported contravention to be directed to attend immediately.  

Again as Resident’s schemes increase within Plymouth, the Council is looking at the possibility of issuing digital permits to conveniently save residents from displaying paper permits. Policing such schemes would be relatively easy via ANPR with each Officer having an automated check to the back office, simply by point and clicking the Casio DT-X30 at number plates within the Residential scheme curtilage.

From a business perspective, Mike concludes the long term benefits: “Equipping the CEOs with the Casio DT-X30 was a solid, effective decision that immediately assists the CEO’s on the ground today. Of equal importance is that we can see that this is an investment that will benefit PCC way into this decade providing a totally digital process and allowing us to explore new areas.  This could include using the device to capture mapping trends to highlight accurately where incidents are more likely to occur allowing us to place resources accordingly to ultimately to keep the streets of Plymouth running smoothly.”

Ends
Notes to editors:
Images are available. A copy of the full case study is available.
http://www.casio-b2b.com/mis/uk/products/overview/
www.plymouth.gov.uk/
Agency Contact:
Sharon Munday
On Your Case Ltd
Tel:     +44 (0) 7787 566382      
email: sharon@onyourcase.co.uk

For more information on the DT-X30, please contact:
CASIO Electronics Co. Ltd.
Unit 6, 1000 North Circular Road, London, NW2 7JD
Tel:             020 8208 7846                  
email  mtd@casio.co.uk  http://www.casio-b2b.com/mis

# # #

On Your Case Ltd is a niche public relations and marketing consultancy designed to service clients in IT Storage and IT Networking.