Casio rugged hand-helds boost parking enforcement efficiency for South Yorkshire town

Following the introduction of new Casio hand-held computers and a software management system from ICES, the Parking Services team at Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council has reported a significant improvement in administrative efficiencies within its enforcement operation, improved recovery rates, a dramatic fall in the number of challenges and the seamless introduction of cashless parking arrangements.
 
"Since adopting ICES Parking Gateway on the Casio DT-X30 hand-held, we've really noticed a difference in our day-to-day operations and all of our Enforcement Officers are delighted with the new generation handheld technology which is so easy to use and to download," says Parking Services Manager, Martin Beard. "What's more we now have full capability to enforce all Regulation 10 'drive away' offences, which had not previously been possible, and the introduction of cashless parking earlier this year couldn't have been easier and is already proving to be a very popular payment method."
 
Rotherham  introduced Parking Gateway from Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions (ICES) in September last year following a comprehensive training programme for the six strong back-office team and all thirteen of the authority's Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs), undertaken as part of preliminary system testing period. The system simplifies the recording, administration and progression of all Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) issued as part of the authority's on- and off-street enforcement activities, including the authority's 13 town centre car parks. Significantly, it also provides a high level of functionality and compatibility with all related enforcement processes associated with different payment methods as well as CCTV and other civil enforcement practices.
 
The solution provided by ICES in Rotherham features the Casio DT-X30 handheld terminals used by all of the CEOs. Each handheld provides a built-in scanner for quick validation of tax discs as well as a auto-focus camera to produce clear evidence of contraventions to minimise unjustified challenges. The DT-X30 is one of the rugged hand-helds today, rated IP67 and with a drop specification of 1.8 metres. It is now the leading hand-held used for parking enforcement. 
 
The Parking Services team at Rotherham MBC has recently been awarded 'Centre of Excellence' status by the Department for Transport for its commitment to identify and address blue badge fraud within the borough - with nineteen successful prosecutions over the past year. And its successful adoption of RingGo cashless parking arrangements in January continues to grow in popularity - already accounting for more than 6% of all parking payments. 
Guy Boxall, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Casio said:  "The Casio DT-X30 is the perfect addition for ticket-less parking, using ANPR and a WWAN connection for payment verification in real time. The ultra-rugged design of the DT-X30 makes it one of the best-of-breed terminals for this parking enforcement application today. This installation at Rotherham MDC has been delivered and installed in record time".

"After many years faced with fragmented practices as well as functional and administrative limitations, we've come a long way in a very short space of time," adds Martin Beard. "We now have much smoother and totally integrated back office arrangements and, as soon as we are able to proceed with the next phase of training, we will be introducing the Permit Gateway system into the back-office to improve management and processing for all types of parking permits within the borough."