ELECTRONIC TICKETING – A brief history and its advantages

By Douglas DeLeaver

Retired Chief of Police for the Maryland Transit Administration Police and past president of NOBLE

I remember the days when I was a patrol officer and we used handwritten multi-part citations which took several minutes (about 5-15 minutes for several citations) to write in addition to being susceptible to many problems such as transposition of numbers, incorrect or incomplete information on the forms, copies being ineligible due to officers not putting enough pressure to complete the forms, circling too many charges on the ticket (which smart lawyers get kicked out) and forms being lost when mailed to courts. Such errors, to my experience and knowledge, caused approximately 10-20% of the citations to be invalid and in some municipalities up to on-third of them to be unenforceable due to these types of errors.

Electronic ticketing (commonly known as E-TIX system www.etix.mdsp.org), which was introducedabout one year ago in Maryland and earlier in other jurisdictions of the United States, eliminated most of the problems related to human error and simultaneously created a more accurate and efficient system of issuing moving violations. In addition, there is an increase in productivity in the officers time as well as increased safety for the officers as they are spending less time on roadside traffic stops while issuing a ticket. The ROI (return on investment) is higher due to the foregoing factors.

The Advantages of Electronic Ticketing are:

Increase in Productivitydue to the time-savings realized by the officers. Instead of spending 10-20 minutes writing a ticket, the officer can simply scan the RFA or barcode information on the driver license of the violator which populates the citation form with the information from the DMV of the owner of the license and other information and the officer would them simply check off or write-in the type of violation. The form is then transmitted electronically through the MDC unit to the Courts system, the DMV computer and the police record system simultaneously. All this accomplished within two to three minutes thus saving 70% of the officer’s time in writing a ticket.

Increase in Accuracy Accuracy is increased tenfold due to errors being minimized thereby creating substantially less invalid citations and increasing in fine revenue. This alone could justify the cost of using an e-ticketing system.

Increase in Efficiency Instead of sending carbon copies to the various database and reporting systems, which maybe ineligible, an e-tix system electronically transmits all the required information to these back end systems thereby increasing efficiency and reducing the manpower resources required for keying in the information in these systems manually from a hand-written ticket. Quicker transfer of data, less errors, less manpower translates into increased efficiency with lower costs.

Increase in SafetyE-tix systems require less time for an officer to be exposed in roadside traffic stops and results in them being less vulnerable to deadly incidents that can occur while they are exposed in the time they are drafting/ issuing a ticket to a violator.

Increase ROI (Return on Investment) An e-tix system can be deployed through a mobile laptop which most law enforcement vehicles have or alternatively through a hand-held/PDA type of device. A system which is deployed through a mobile laptop in a vehicle requires a scanner and a thermal or high impact printer for a citation to be issued. A software application is used in conjunction with the e-tix system as it integrates seamlessly with the infrastructure of the other agencies to which the citation information is transmitted. The cost of the software and hardware can be substantial, if the correct components are not chosen. Done correctly, a typical software and hardware application might cost approximately $1,500- $2,000 per system depending upon the system being selected and deployed.

FundingSubstantial funding is available through Federal grants such as Local Law Enforcement Block Grant, Justice Assistance Grant, Supplemental Law Enforcement Services funds, and many other grants from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Justice Programs.State and counties should also look into the possibility of funding it through their budgets since the initial investment versus ROI is very low. Additionally, some vendors may be able to provide the required equipment on lease or rent basis allowing counties/agencies to acquire the equipment at a further reduced cost.

The Future of Electronic Ticketing

Electronic ticketing is here now and is the wave of the future.It is presently being successfully utilized in several counties in Maryland and throughout the Country. Nowadays, with more and more police vehicles being equipped with a mobile laptop which acts as an office-in-the-car and provides access to information from a variety of local and national databases, such as NCIC or DMV MVA and in the near future to the RealID, it is of paramount importance that the officer get all information by just swiping or scanning the bar coded or RFA information on a driver license. Officers need to have instant access to outstanding arrest warrants, license and registration information. It would be invaluable to the law enforcement community if the e-tix data base is also interconnected to all the States as a national database. As an example, currently the information of a repeat offender in a State is not available to another State. Hence, if a person is issued a ticket for a violation of traffic regulations in New York yet he resides in another State, there is a strong likelihood that subsequent offender status may not be identified. Conversely, if the databases were interconnected, a flag could go up in the system of the State where the license is issued and a follow-up could be done at the time when either a license is being renewed or an arrest or fine imposed for not showing up for a court appearance. Likewise the second state could properly identify and handle the matter a subsequent offender.

While some progress is being made in certain jurisdictions utilizing the e-tix system, not nearly enough progress is being made in the overall landscape, considering what this technology is capable of delivering to law enforcement. Hopefully, one of the State Police Departments will take the lead in making this initiative into a significant and powerful reality.

Brekford International Corp, a custom solutions provider, offers a total bumper-to-bumper turn-key upfitting package for law enforcement vehicles, including their Slick-Ticket Out-of-the-box electronic ticketing system. This system is compatible with most software applications current in the market. Brekford also offers municipal lease financing on full vehicle build outs, Panasonic laptops, Arbitrator video systems and on their Slick-Ticket systems discussed in this article.

The author, Douglas Deleaver is a law enforcement veteran and security consultant with over 37 years of experience in local, state, federal, critical infrastructure and international security assessment and mitigation. He is the past National President of NOBLE, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Mr. Deleaver has served on boards of various organizations, including the Ethics Board for Harford County , Maryland , the U.S. Service Academies Nomination Board, the Maryland Chiefs of Police Association as President, and state and regional chapters of NOBL E as President and Vice President, respectively. He also served in several positions in theState of Maryland, including Superintendent of the Maryland Natural Resources Police, the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, as well as Chief of Police of the Maryland Transit Administration and for over 23 years in the Maryland State Police. Mr. Deleaver is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Brekford Corp. www.brekford.com

- End -