Kitchener’s new tech tool to catch parking infractions

Kitchener has turned to artificial intelligence to help bylaw officers spot parking violations on city streets. CTV’s Krista Simpson explains.

The City of Kitchener has rolled out a new tool to catch and ticket drivers who park where they shouldn’t.

The system, called SenForce, uses six cameras mounted to the bylaw enforcement vehicle.

When the officer drives through an enforcement area, the cameras employ artificial intelligence and license plate recognition technology to capture possible violations.

“The system itself recognizes what zone it’s in,” explained Ian Misheal, manager of bylaw for the City of Kitchener. “It can recognize signage and then, any vehicle that’s in violation of the bylaw, it automatically starts taking pictures of the vehicle, mainly the license plate, and some background pictures. And the operator continues driving by.”

“It’s not just cameras recording,” said Subhash Challa, CEO of SenSen networks, the company behind SenForce. “It’s like they’re thinking, acting, figuring out what vehicle to ignore, what vehicle to really capture.”

The bylaw officer then reviews the information gathered, determines which cases are actual infractions, issues and mails the ticket to the registered owner of the vehicle.

The city purchased the system a little more than a year ago. They put it through its paces and tweaked the program to ensure it complied with regulations and met Kitchener’s needs.

Misheal said that has allowed the city to double its capacity to enforce school zones.

The new system is also safer for bylaw officers, who can avoid potential confrontations and conflicts.

School zones, in particular, are a challenge for enforcement.

“It’s a rush time. Parents are stressed trying to get their kids to school, but quite often, officers were being confronted with parents that were aggressive,” Misheal said, adding some officers have been assaulted while issuing a ticket. “We had situations where some officers didn’t want to go to the school zones because they didn’t want to have to deal with that.”

He noted that these tickets tend to stick because “it’s almost indisputable because the evidence is so strong.”

As for privacy concerns, the system automatically blurs any individuals captured in the pictures. It also deletes any photo that doesn’t show an infraction within 24 hours, while pictures of vehicles that are ticketed are kept in a secure place until the fine is paid or resolved.

Two of these systems are currently being used in Kitchener. Each one costs about $80,000.

The original focus of the initiative was to improve enforcement in school zones, but the technology has also being used to track time limits in parking areas downtown and in pay-by-plate parking lots.

Misheal said the system has caught the attention of other municipalities as well, including Toronto, Hamilton, Mississauga and Waterloo, who have come to Kitchener to see how it works.

For Challa, the goal is to make the difficult job of parking enforcement a little easier.

“These technologies are all about augmentation automation, not really going after the jobs, but a good use of AI in some sense.”