Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TAIS (TES App Issuing Software)

Teaser

The overall objective of the TAIS project is to develop and demonstrate an efficient way for councils to manage and implement Hand Held Devices in the normal day-to-day operations of their Civil Enforcement Officers, by using the latest smart phone technology which is cheaper...

Summary

The overall objective of the TAIS project is to develop and demonstrate an efficient way for councils to manage and implement Hand Held Devices in the normal day-to-day operations of their Civil Enforcement Officers, by using the latest smart phone technology which is cheaper and more efficient than older style systems that councils currently use.
There is an increasing need to charge for parking in urban environments and the benefits include:-
• Increase in space turnover leading to easier access to spaces.
• Reduces number of spaces required to meet demand, leading to less development cost.
• Encourages long-stay parking outside the Central Business Districts (CBD), helping to make town centres more attractive.
• Reduces other problems: congestion, pollution and energy consumption.
• Generating revenue to pay for space provision and road infrastructures or public transport.

The specific objectives (POs) of the project are to:
PO1. Identify and test the most suitable Mobile phone operating system with the longest battery life.
PO2. Identify and develop the best process for utilising the GPS on the phone to relay the signal on a minute by minute basis whilst reducing the battery consumption by 25%.
PO3. Use open cross-platform communication protocols to develop an API that will link into the Compliance Display Map (CDM).
PO4. Develop an Automatic Number Plate Reader that will allow real time look ups from a centralised database.
PO5. Develop an API that will link into Back Office of pre-existing suppliers with the minimum of effort and the lowest cost.
PO6. Identify and develop the best mechanism for robustness and ease of use that does not require the final users to have deep knowledge of the underlying IT infrastructure.
PO7. Develop a reporting algorithm that will monitor each transaction which will ensure accountability as well as Shortfalls where further training is required.
PO8. Develop a Control Panel usable by an Administrator which will ensure that all Data Protection issues are complied with and which can easily be exported to a third party in the event of an enquiry.
PO9. Reduce carbon footprint of “cruising vehicles” looking for parking by ensuring that over-stayers will vacate their parking bay on time due to possibility of enforceable action.
PO10. To increase the number of vehicles checked per hour by parking attendants by at least 300%.
PO11. To increase the accuracy of parking checks by attendants, thus reducing mis-reads by at least 30%.

Work performed

The final version (first full release) of the TAIS mobile phone ticket issuing application was made after extensive in-house testing, U.A.T by the Civica technical team and feedback from the London borough Haringey enforcement team who kindly participated in a usability and fit for purpose review of the application. This first release included cumulative bug fixes, general enhancements to the application and improvements to optimise battery usage ready for the Pilot phase.

The pilot was designed to test and review the TES TAIS Mobile Phone notice issuing application in a real-world environment. TES provided the configuration and set-up of the mobile phone device(s) in use for the trial, the configuration of the TAIS middleware; which included a purpose-built interface with the back-office supplier (Civica CE) and the TES Compliance Display Map set-up, configuration and training. Training workshops were held with the parking enforcement team prior to commencement of the pilot, with Civil Enforcement Officers in particular encouraged to share feedback (good and bad) in order to allow the Pilot reference group to properly evaluate the pilot scheme.

The pilot was carried out in conjunction with Gravesham Borough Council which is a local government district in north-west Kent, England. The council itself is a based in the largest town and residential area which is Gravesend. The pilot was a complete success, after a post-pilot review process TES addressed several recommendations for refinements to the app and some minor bug fixes, and subsequently Gravesham placed an order for a permanent implementation which went live in October 2017. TES now have another firm order for TAIS from the London borough of Redbridge (due to go live in November 2017) with London Borough of Haringey and several other councils currently in negotiation to buy the product.

As with the first year of the project particular attention has been given to the dissemination of the project. The TAIS website has been continually updated with the latest news from the project (https://www.etais.eu) which gives an overview of the technology to interested parties. A schedule of dissemination at conferences and in relevant trade journals has been produced and updated. Press releases and articles have been made in relevant trade journals and the relevant technical sales literature regularly updated to reflect the latest specifications.

The project has been presented at several major trade shows including Parkex (twice) the Emergency Services Show, Parking World and Healthy Streets in London and most recently the GITEX 2017 Trade Fair as part of the EU Pavilion with significant interest shown by potential end-users from both the public and private sector. In addition, TES have pitched TES and TAIS in the Netherlands, Belgium and South Africa as well as discussing the potential use of ANPR and TAIS for decriminalised parking enforcement with organisations in France, Portugal, Costa Rica and the Middle East.

Final results

One encouraging aspect of the TAIS project has been when the local authority decides to buy in to using smart phone technology for Civil Enforcement and provide the administrative effort and resource to do so, how quickly staff take to it. During the workshops, dissemination activities and the pilot of TAIS at Gravesham, staff quickly picked up how to navigate between menus and access the functionality of the app a lot quicker than they had with pre-existing hand held devices.

Islington are now able to use the CDM system to manage compliance using the real-time data produced by the system to better understand where the enforcement ‘hot spots’ and trends are and deploy resources accordingly. They are also able to check areas in the borough not previously possible on foot and carry out parking occupancy surveys using ANPR vehicles in a fraction of the time it can be done on foot. The data from the CDM system is also used to provide information for “parking availability’ applications used by motorists in the borough.

Islington are seeing rewards with Civil Enforcement Officer moral, as time spent just walking around has been reduced by this pro-active approach to on street enforcement. In tests in Islington it was found that it took an ANPR car on average 5 seconds to check a vehicle as opposed to the existing average time of 97 seconds per vehicle.

The project team believe that all objectives have been achieved, with the highly successful outcome being two firm orders for the TAIS product already, and several others in the pipeline.

TES are already working on further expanding the CDM platform to include 360-degree street view level surveys, enhanced occupancy data processing and pollution monitoring functionality that can be used to establish the effectiveness of traffic management / enforcement in clean air zones.

Website & more info

More info: https://etais.eu.