As communities across the country begin to reopen following the COVID-19 shutdowns, parking departments will once again begin to enforce on-street parking. As always, it will be essential to provide parking enforcement officers with safe, efficient, and private workspaces.
Westward Vehicles recently conducted an efficiency study to identify opportunities to improve the efficiency of parking enforcement operations, while creating a safe alternative for parking staff to perform their daily operations.
Westward’s study addressed the productivity gains achieved by parking departments using a parking-specific electric utility vehicle instead of walking or driving standard vehicles. The study found that parking-specific vehicles significantly increase PEO citation rates over walking. The narrow profile of parking specific vehicles allows the officer to park the vehicle along the street between the on-street parking and the road without impeding traffic. This is an improvement over standard vehicles that often need to be parked, and require the officer to take the time to walk to the vehicle to write a citation. Further, parking-specific vehicles allow PEOs to enforce significantly more territory, resulting in increased citations and revenues over walking and standard vehicles. The study highlights a 42% improvement in time efficiency compared to conventional vehicles, and 100% improvement over walking.
Now more than ever, parking organizations will be looking for opportunities to create more efficient parking operations, while generating revenues. Increasing the speed in which parking enforcement officers can cover their territories results in significant increases in citations, as well as increased revenues.
