Hand-written traffic tickets will soon be a thing of the past, replaced by cops with computers: Symbol Technologies and business partner Duncan Management Solutions teamed to supply New York City with a traffic summons solution, based on Symbol mobile computers and printers. The city says the new system will significantly reduce errors associated with hand-written tickets and, according to some estimates, realize millions in unpaid fines owed the city.
The Symbol PPT 2800 -- a handheld computer with integrated 2-D bar code scanning and Symbol Spectrum24 wireless local area network (WiFi) communications -- will be an alternative to New York City's current handwritten method of issuing tickets that is traditional in most United States municipalities. With the new system, police and traffic enforcement officers simply scan the PDF417 (a two-dimensional bar code developed by Symbol) incorporated in the vehicle's registration sticker, which is affixed on the windshield, and information about that particular vehicle will be instantly and accurately captured. A traffic summons will then be printed on the spot by a portable Symbol MF4T wearable thermal printer connected to the PPT 2800 via the Symbol wireless LAN.
The City will be purchasing approximately 1,500 Symbol mobile computers in 2003. Other cities throughout the U.S. are testing or are set to deploy similar solutions using Symbol rugged mobile computers, data capture and wireless technology.
The City Finance Department collected $429 million in parking violation revenue last year, according to the Mayor's Management Report, but millions more were lost because of problems with tickets, including mistakes, illegible writing and data entry. Such errors will be reduced with this Symbol mobility solution.
"For 20 years, this City has been trying to solve the problem that when parking agents make a mistake, we bill the wrong people and a lot of the fines never get collected," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told The New York Times. "Using the technology is an idea whose time has come. Finally, I think, we've got it right."
"The significant advantage is that we will go from a 13 percent error rate to less than one percent error rate," Police Chief Michael Scagnelli told the New York Post, which also reported that the City could reap nearly $17 million in extra fines.
Finance Commissioner Martha Stark added, "It's about efficiency and accuracy."