The city of Chicago's budget needs more revenue Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants fewer cars in the busiest areas and the age of predictive analytics is upon us attempting to solve crime and now—street parking.
NBC 5 talked with John, a parking enforcement aide in the loop, Monday evening.
The number of upset drivers he encountered is far less than the dollar amount of the tickets he writes every day on his one and a half mile route. In just ten minutes time a car was hit with a $65 dollar ticket. The driver had paid for parking, but the time had elapsed. Another car was parked illegally. Its driver faces a $250 dollar fine.
The city’s Finance Department argues while there is serious money to be made from ramping up its enforcement, there’s an equally serious parking issue especially around stores and businesses.
For the past 7 months the city has tested adding a crude method of predictive analytics.
It’s already widely used for traffic congestion, accident reduction and parking availability, but now—parking enforcement.
More enforcement aides like John, in more commercial areas at the busiest times are part of the plan. The city says revenue jumped $2.5 million.
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Add in real time data from 311 calls of parking complaints and the city expects to haul in even more money.
What won’t change is how a ticketed driver reacts.
By the first of next year the city pledges to equip parking enforcement aides with high tech devices feeding the real time data they would need to descend on the areas of big issues and potentially big money.
