Prior to the launch of its new parking authority, Winnipeg, with a population of more than 685,000, depended on several separate parking departments to administer parking operations. To complicate matters, each department used different management systems: citations were run by police, meters were controlled by the Works Department, off-street parking garages and lots that belong to the city were managed by the Property Department. Now, with the new streamlined parking authority, all the parking departments within each group have merged together naturally and will work from the same unified system.
The upgrade from the old manual system to the new automatic system will also help the city of Winnipeg evolve into a more high-tech community. A more efficient system allows the parking authority to spend more time and resources focusing on proactive parking projects, rather than fixing old problems. Winnipeg will also use Recon wireless handheld ticketwriters, communicating in real-time, for increased efficiency in the field.
"Initiative came from the city council to harmonize parking operations in order to facilitate a rebirth of Winnipeg's downtown area," says David Hill, Chief Operating Officer and general manager of Winnipeg's Parking Authority. "Not only does the new system create a smoother process for the parking authority, it eases the burden on Winnipeg's residents and visitors by housing all parking operations online, managed by one office."
PowerPark Flex is a hosted solution in which all software and data residing on servers can be securely accessed from any PC with a browser. A unified platform for everything parking, PowerPark Flex minimizes duplicate work between various systems. The open architecture integrates multiple functions, allowing parking operations to easily share data within an organization and with outside vendors, via standardized data exchange protocols.
