In 2017, however, this was all about change. In October 2017, the APA welcomed a new Executive Director, John N. Morgan. Shortly after his arrival, John began invigorating APA’s operations. From updated policies to a new organization logo and new vehicles, the changes were rapid and welcomed. It was a fast and furious time of new uniforms, responsibilities, and changes—Oh my!

While an evolution to a more focused, customer-centric approach was happening inside the APA, a major change that would have a tremendous impact on the organization was happening outside it. For many years, the City of Allentown operated its own 911 Emergency Communication Center (Comm Center). The Center fielded emergency phone calls ranging from law enforcement and fire-related emergencies to health emergencies. Parking-related complaints were included among potential life and death communications. The Comm Center received parking enforcement requests and dispatched those calls to APA parking enforcement officers.

And then, everything changed.

Shift to a 24/7 Operation

The County leadership decided to funnel emergency calls through the County Dispatch Center and no longer handle the calls locally through the City of Allentown, and our local city-operated center would close. While this was difficult news to process, they say that when one door closes, another one opens. That was the case for the APA.

As the closure deadline for the Comm Center neared and the details were ironed out, the APA was made aware that the County Dispatch Center preferred not to handle the parking complaints. In a meeting on the topic, Executive Director Morgan was informed that this task would now fall to the APA. In a single meeting, a task of enormous magnitude was assigned to our organization. Remember the necessity is the mother of invention thing I mentioned earlier?

This new and lofty goal came as a shock to the APA team and, at first, was very overwhelming. For decades, the APA had operated on a traditional business schedule. There were just enough staff to operate Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Suddenly, with essentially no warning, APA was looking at a transition to a fully functioning 24/7 operation.

In my 17 years of experience in the parking industry, I have learned that parking operations all share some common functions. For example, a parking deck generally tends to have the same components, whether it’s in a large city or a small one: gates, cameras, kiosks, or podiums. Some parking decks have elevators; some do not, but nearly all have stairs. So, a parking deck is a common element of most parking operations that nearly all operators can find commonality on. That said, transitioning from a traditional parking operation to a 24/7 one was NOT common. Despite looking everywhere, a manual on becoming 24/7 had not yet been written. The lack of availability of “how-to videos” would be a challenge as we embarked on this transition.

So, without a roadmap to guide us and determined to break new ground, the process began. We started by brainstorming on the immediate needs.

What Did We Need to Succeed?

While not the only need, staff was certainly an obvious one, so I laid a framework on what positions would be needed and in what order. At the time, there was only one supervisor—ME! More supervisors would be needed. We would require dispatch staff along with a phone system and means of taking and tracking calls. As I began researching options for dispatch software, I only found options geared towards emergency call centers and focused on serving the needs of police, fire, and EMS situations. Those 911-type software solutions were also very expensive, making them well out of reach. Specific parking dispatch software was unavailable, so some outside-of-the-box thinking occurred.

The solution came to me in a conversation with our third-party towing company. A towing operation receives calls for assistance, much like my organization would receive calls for parking enforcement, and requires some way of taking those calls, dispatching a tow truck to the location, and then resolving the call in a software system. I found out what software the towing company used, and I then made a trip to Baltimore to attend the National Towing Industry trade show to speak to the software company directly. The software not only met our needs but could also be used with our current ticket management system. The incoming calls could be input into the system and would digitally forward to the enforcement officer in the field. This drastically reduced radio traffic from the dispatcher to the enforcement officer and provided a record of the call without having to write it down themselves. The software cost was only a small fraction of many other types on the market. One step down, and many more to go!

Our enforcement staff began to grow. I was promoted to Enforcement Manager, and I now have a growing staff of supervisors, dispatchers, and enforcement officers. We soon added a second shift and began taking enforcement requests well into the evenings. Naturally, our ticketing production increased with the addition of more enforcement officers and expanding our hours of coverage. The increased productivity also began to increase the number of scofflaw vehicles. This presented a problem: our boot inventory was not adequately supplied for the increase.