Department of Parking and Traffic_Section 4
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Electronic Meters
This performance audit of the City"s Parking Meter Program was done during the time that the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) is preparing a Request for Proposal (RFP) to hire an outside contractor to replace all of the existing mechanical parking meters with electronic parking meters. [1] The development of a RFP replaces the current FY 1998-99 budget objective to hire 12.0 FTEs to install the electronic meter replacements because of the uncertainty about the new electronic meter technology and interest by the Board of Supervisors in piloting some other new parking equipment. The DPT expects to complete the development of its RFP in March 1999.
According to DPT"s Finance Director, the proposed RFP would permit a broader approach to the converting all of the City"s mechanical meters to electronic meters. A broader approach would expand the scope of the meter conversion and would include: (1) a testing of the electronic locking system, (2) the development of a common data base with an integrated system, (3) the introduction and promotion of "smart" cards, (4) a common mapping system that integrates collections with repairs and (5) an integrated collection process. DPT advises that the RFP would not entertain the inclusion of maintenance and repair nor the operations of the Parking Control Officers as part of an overall package for an outside contract.
A General Fund reserve of $1,660,166 was established in the FY 1998-99 budget to begin citywide installation of electronic parking meters. Since the proposed RFP will delay that objective even further, it is likely that the reserve of $1,660,166 will not be needed during the current fiscal year.
Currently, the DPT has approximately 22,700 parking meters in its inventory of street and parking lot locations that are located within 19 DPT parking meter repair districts throughout the City .[2] During the past two years the DPT has purchased up to 3,000 test electronic meters and deployed approximately 1,000 of them to various collection routes (on-street and parking lot) to test their reliability prior to replacing all of the remaining mechanical meters.
The RFP for the implementation of new electronic meters would seek other services as well as the installation of the electronic meters. Other parking meter related activities that may be considered in the proposed RFP could include:
- The development of an overall design that would tailor the City"s parking meter program to an optimum operating plan and coordination of participating departments, agencies and outside vendors.
- The use of smart cards could be incorporated in any overall plan to convert to electronic meters to introduce and increase the use of debit cards and reduce and eventually replace the need for coins to purchase time at a parking meter location.
- The design of a parking meter mapping system that could integrate the current routes used by the parking revenue collectors and the maintenance and repair districts used by the parking meter repairers and machinists.
- The use of other electronic pay parking machines such as "Pay and Display" for street and parking lot areas that would be more suitable for these alternative pay-as-you-go parking control devises.
- The development of a cash collection and counting system that would provide for the deposit of revenue on the same day that the revenue has been collected.
- The provisions of a financial guarantee in the form a fixed minimum payment to the City if the entire parking meter function or a substantial portion of the parking meter function is contracted out to a private vendor.
- The alternative of contracting out the maintenance and repair of parking meters provided that the privatization of this activity would substantially reduce the time that a meter is broken. As noted earlier, this alternative is not being considered in the DTP"s development of a RFP.
Current Parking Meter Program
The current Parking Meter Program is managed by several different entities including:
2) The Parking Meter Collections Manager, who supervises the Parking Meter Collections contract and reports separately to the Traffic Operations Division Manager;
3) The Municipal Railway (MUNI) Revenue and Collections Department which counts the parking meter revenue; and
4) The Disabled Person"s Placard Enforcement Program in the Field Operation Unit of the DPT Enforcement Division, which enforces and controls parking regulations.
Because of this diverse organization of responsibility, management coordination is extremely important in order to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the City"s Parking Meter Program.
Review and Analysis of Parking Meter Program
As part of our analysis, we examined how well each of the various components that make up the existing parking meter operations are managed and coordinated in order to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the City"s Parking Meter Program. The purpose and goal of the City"s Parking Meter Program is to use parking meters and parking time limits to increase the availability of short-term parking through turnover and to ensure that revenue collection is maximized and secure .[3] To accomplish these objectives, we:
- Reviewed organizational charts, budget documents and performance measures for the Parking Meter Division, Parking Meters Collection Manager, Muni"s receipt and counting of revenue operations, and the contractual obligations of the parking meters collections contractor;
- Interviewed managers in the Parking Meter Division, Parking Meters Collection, MUNI"s Revenue and Collections Department, related supervisors and line staff;
- Obtained and examined district repair route descriptions and district log books and collection route maps;
- Reviewed departmental and division policies and procedures manuals when such documents were available;
- Obtained information from supervisors and managers on daily staffing requirements and general deployment practices;
- Discussed current security measures to protect and ensure that the current revenue collection process is safe and effective and that additional meter losses due to vandalism are minimized;
- Analyzed management reports and selected computer print-outs that tracked key events for the maintenance, repair and replacement of individual parking meters; and
- Accompanied Parking Meter Repairers and Parking Meter Collectors in the field to observe specific problems and opportunities that occurred during the performance of their duties and responsibilities.
Based on our review of the current operations of the City"s Parking Meter Program, we conclude that revenues can increase as the result of a combination of (1) the replacement of the existing mechanical meters with electronic meters and (2) the implementation of improved operations. The Department is currently on course to do the former, which is to replace its current inventory of mechanical meters with electronic meters. That action should reflect a measured improvement to revenue collection and security. However, other steps should be taken to improve operations and management of its current Parking Meter Program.
At the present time, the Parking Meter Program suffers from poor coordination of manpower and resources that has resulted in a lack of parking turnover and extremely low revenue returns. The DPT does not repair a broken meter or replace a vandalized meter within a reasonably short period of time.
This Section discusses measures that can be taken to improve operations and program coordination, over and above the improvements that will result from electronic meters, and therefore further increase the revenue stream and short term parking availability through improvements to program operations. An increased revenue stream will more than pay for any increased costs to improve the management and coordination of the parking meter program.
Parking Meter Revenue
At the present time the Department has estimated parking meter revenue for FY 1998-99 at $12.8 million.[4] We estimate that with 22,700 meters (including approximately 3,500 meters in yellow zones and 700 motorcycle meters) and with 85 percent of these meters in working order at any one time ,[5] that a total of $31.3 million annually could be collected from the meters in working operation .[6] Thus, given an anticipated annual collection for parking meters of $31.3 million and the FY 1998-99 budgeted anticipated revenue expected to be $12.8 million, the City is collecting only 40.9 percent of its reasonable potential revenue or $2.21 per day per working meter instead of $5.40 per day per working meter.
According to the Department, it is difficult to estimate what percentages of revenue loss can be attributed to each of several factors:
- Non-payment when parked at a meter;
- Non-payment because the meter is jammed;
- Non-payment for time when the vehicle has overstayed its apportioned time;
- Non-payment because the parked vehicle is displaying a disabled or other exempt placard;
- Loss of revenue due to internal or external theft;
- The use of foreign coins, objects and plum candies [7] in place of coins of legal tender.
The new electronic meters will be harder to jam. In addition, the new electronic locks are supposedly impossible to break as the codes are changed every day and are keyed to each meter individually. Therefore, a portion of the problems that currently results in low revenue returns should be improved with the introduction of electronic meters. Preliminary estimates as reported by the DPT, indicate that revenues have increase from 45 to 93 percent in the test areas where electronic meters have been introduced. We have reviewed the DPT electronic meter test data and concur with these estimates of increased revenue.
Furthermore, the electronic meters will encourage the increased use of the new "smart cards" which, over time, could substantially replace the use of coins in parking meters.
However, other problems and weaknesses that are not directly associated with theft are causing the Parking Meter Program to fall short of its stated goals, including the prime objective that revenue collection is maximized and secure. Those other problems involve staffing, coordination and management oversight of the existing Parking Meter Program. If improvements to staffing, coordination and management oversight could increase the average revenue collection per individual parking meter by just fifty cents ($0.50) or 9.3 percent of the $5.40 daily revenue expectation, the Parking Meter Program, as explained below, could expect to increase annual revenues by $2.9 million.[8] Other improvements include increasing the number of enforcement hours by Parking Control Officers (PCO), including early morning enforcement between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., and increasing DPT"s current efforts to enforce the proper use of the disabled person placards at metered spaces and at designated blue handicapped curb locations.
This is a reasonable expectation if staffing, program coordination and management oversight of the existing Parking Meter Program is improved based on the discussions provided below. For example, we observed that six percent to 10 percent of the parking meters are either broken or vandalized at any one time. Furthermore, it takes up to two to four days for the existing field maintenance staff to make a complete examination of each and every parking meter in their assigned repair district and therefore, make, if necessary, an in-the-field repair of a broken meter. Thus, a parking meter might be inoperable for an average estimated 1.8 days with a loss of revenue totaling $12.15 (1.8 times $6.75). Based on an eight percent rate of total broken meters that would be found at any one time, the loss per meter would be at least $0.50 per meter per day.
Parking Meter Program Staffing and Operations
As noted above, staffing responsibilities for the operations of the Parking Meter Program are divided among several different entities. These include:
2) The Parking Meter Collections Manager, who supervises the Parking Meter Collections Contract;
3) The work order to the Department of Public Transportation which provides for the counting of parking meter revenues; and
4) A separate Field Operation Unit of the DPT Enforcement Division, which is responsible for the Disabled Person"s Placard Enforcement Program.
Parking Meter Maintenance and Repair Units
The Parking Meters Unit is divided operationally between a parking meter maintenance shop and a parking meter repair shop. The maintenance shop has 20 budgeted employees, including two Parking Meter Repair Supervisors, 16 Parking Meter Repairers (field operation) and two Laborers (support to Parking Meter Repairers). The repair shop has seven employees, one Maintenance Machine Supervisor and six Maintenance Machinists. In addition, there is a Machine Shop Supervisor and Meter Supervisor that is an overall supervisor to both the maintenance and repair shop. That supervisor has two clerks that maintain computer data and produce monthly reports based on data input from manual records. The clerks perform other clerical duties including answering calls from the public concerning inoperable and missing meters and other issues related to on-street parking.
The Parking Meter Maintenance Shop has until very recently been at 75 percent strength because only 12 out of the 16 budgeted Parking Meter Repairer positions have been filled .[9] This has resulted in the inability of field staff to meet the DPT stated performance measure as reported for the last three consecutive years. That performance measure states that the average time between meter inspection and repair is to be 3.4 days. Our observations and review of computer data reports concludes that meters that are identified as active in the inventory can be out of service for as much as two and one-half years. Because meter repair may require only a quick 15-second fix in the field or may take up to several months to repair because the meter is brought back to the Repair Shop, it would be difficult to get an actual average time needed for repairs that could be compared with the DPT"s current service measure of 3.4 days.
For example, we observed that Hayes Street Meter No. 203 (the second meter west of Van Ness Avenue on the south side) was absent, and the DPT computer tracking print-out indicated that the parking meter head and post were reported missing on May 16, 1996. The meter post was replaced on June 13, 1996. However, the meter head was not replaced until the Budget Analyst staff advised the Parking Meter Repairer Supervisor on this matter on December 16, 1998, two years and six months after the meter at that location had been reported missing.[10] Under optimal situations for the collection of revenue, it is estimated that this individual meter cost the City approximately $4,050 in lost revenue over the two and one-half year period during which no employee observed that this meter was missing and out of service.
An under strength parking meter repair staff also results in delays in installing parking meters in new areas. For example, 30 parking meters on Franklin Street between Golden Gate Avenue and Eddy Street, which had been routinely approved by the Board of Supervisors on March 30, 1998, have to date not been installed.[11]
Our observations also noted that the Parking Meter Repairers (PMR) are short of parts to make field repairs or are in possession of inferior parts to make adequate repairs. For example, the springs needed to repair a jammed coin catcher in the field are not the correct length. Therefore, the springs are broken more often and need to be replaced more often. Instead of a replacement spring lasting two to three years, the spring is lasting only two to three weeks. The Machine Maintenance Supervisor orders parking meter parts, even though many of the parts are used by the PMRs in the field who are directed by their own Parking Meter Repair Supervisors. We have found that the PMRs do not always have sufficient parts to make their field repairs because of the insufficient number of parts that are readily available to them.
Furthermore, as suggested by the Parking Meters Shop Supervisor, the number of assigned vehicles to PMRs should be increased so that each employee would have his/her own assigned vehicle with modern radio equipment. This would help increase the coordination of reporting parking meters that are damaged and decrease the amount of time that parking meters are out of service.
Added problems involve the installation of flange posts [12] which must be installed by a Maintenance Machinist rather than a Laborer. As a result of current shortages in filled positions, these installations need to be scheduled at least one month in advance. We have noted that Hickory Street Meters Nos. 5 and 7 have been out of service for several months awaiting the installation of flange posts.
Particular street locations have their meters and posts removed/destroyed on a routine basis. We observed this problem on Page Street between Franklin (at Market Street) and Gough Streets. On more than one occasion over the past few years the same meters have been torn out and removed from the moorings. Correction of this problem is outside the purview of the Parking Meters Unit. It represents a general security problem to which DPT does not currently direct its full attention .[13]
The Parking Meter Repair Shop has until very recently been at 60 percent strength, as only three out of the five budgeted Maintenance Machinist positions have been filled .[14] This is because two employees have retired. One employee retired in April of 1998 and the other employee retired in July of 1998. [15] If DPT had anticipated the reduction in personnel well before the actual retirements, the parking meter repair unit would not find itself under staffed by 40 percent for a significant length of time.
In addition to machine shop duties and responsibilities, one Machinist is partially assigned to the Parking Meter Collections Manager in support of the Collections Program and to service all aspects of the collections equipment. We conclude that the Parking Meter Collections Manager needs an additional employee to adequately perform the duties of managing the parking meter collections function as described below. That additional assistance should not be provided at the expense of reducing the number of employees in the Parking Meter Repair shop.
There are no recent written policies, procedures or individual performance standards that provide the repair personnel with sufficient detail as to what can be expected of them in performing their duties and responsibilities. The preparation of formal written procedures should be a priority of the Parking Meters Division to be monitored by the Manager of Traffic Operations. However, the Department has recently drafted an Electronic Parking Meter Work Plan which outlines how the staffs of the Parking Meter Maintenance and Repair Units would be deployed when all of the existing mechanical meters are replaced by electronic meters.
Parking Meter Collections Manager
The Parking Meter Collections Manager distributes and secures all collections equipment (keys, seals, and vaults) requisitioned to contractual staff and monitors the daily compliance of the operations performed by the parking meter collections contractor. The manager also conducts security surveillance and the monitoring of meters with the assistance of the Police Department. Other duties include creating and securing data bases, which assist the Manager to control and track daily collections from the electronic parking meters. In addition, the Manager monitors losses incurred from vandalism, damages related to stolen meters, and meter keys, and produces weekly meter audit reports. This position has been recently reorganized and properly located in the field at DTP"s Traffic Operations Division. Prior to 1997, the Parking Meter Collections Manager was housed in DPT Administration and physically removed from the direct day-to-day administration of the parking meter collections contract.
With the development of written policies and procedures the Parking Meter Collections Manager has clearly enunciated the duties and responsibilities of the position. These duties and responsibilities include daily inventory procedures for meter collection services and a program work plan for parking meter security. We believe that the Manager assumes an important role in coordinating the various units within DPT, the collection contractor and services of the Department of Public Transportation. In performing these duties we recommend the addition of one position, a Management Assistant, to assist the Manager with contract monitoring and an expanded security surveillance program which would replace the current part-time assistance from the Parking Meter Repair Shop. The part time position could then return to the Parking Repair Shop. The duties and responsibilities would be divided as follows:
Â
| Description | Percent of Time |
| Â | Â |
| Coordinate day to day operations of the Collections Contractor | 30 |
| Provide increased analysis of daily and periodic reports of meter outages | 30 |
| Expand activities associated a theft prevention program | 30 |
| Fill in for Parking Meter Collections Manager during absences | 10 |
| Total | 100 |
The annual cost of a Class 1842 Management Assistant to be assigned to the Parking Meter Collections Manager is estimated to cost $55,500. However, the actual classification that would be authorized would depend on a classification review by the Department of Human Resources.
Our field observations indicate that various measures could be taken to enhance security and reduce the current and continuing theft of revenue from the parking meters. For example:
- At the present time, many collection routes, including consecutive blocks of meters or meters located in off-street parking facilities, can be opened with one coin vault key. Thieves who have stolen a meter usually perpetrate thefts of other meters in the vicinity. The stolen meter is taken apart and its key reproduced in order to match the keys of all of the adjacent parking meters. This allows the removal of coins from meter vaults in a minimal amount of time because only one key is needed to open all of the coin vaults, and the thievery can be done quickly and efficiently without detection. This is the primary advantage to successfully stealing the coins from the parking meters, as thieves want to minimize their time at the parking meters. The longer it takes to access a number of parking meters, the greater the likelihood that the action will be detected and reported to the police. Therefore, if there were several keys that opened a series of coin vaults and the vault locks were randomly selected, the thievery would be discouraged due to the increased time needed to access all of the intended coin vaults.
- Parking meter coin vaults [16] do not always have the same scripted markings, which identifies them to the particular parking meter in which they are contained. This would indicate that an empty coin vault with the same identification had been substituted for one with an accumulation of coins just prior to the scheduled collection of coins from that meter. This activity may be detected with some ease if there is a particular drop in the amount of revenue collected .[17] There is also an indication that this activity is an internal breach of security since several parking meter coin vaults would need to be involved in order to replace several similar coin vaults already in the field.
The Parking Meter Program should also consider that over the years two separate mapping systems have been developed, one that defines 19 parking meter repair districts (Districts A through T)[18] and one that defines 92 collection routes that are divided into four zones. Because these two mapping systems are not compatible, there is only an antiquated system of coordinating parking meter collection with parking meter maintenance and repair when it comes to reporting a broken meter.
The parking meter program will obviously be improved if the coordination of parking collections and repairs allows a meter to be repaired or replaced within hours rather than days, weeks or even months after the initial notification that maintenance and repairs are needed. The Parking Meter Program exhibits a significant operational weakness with the lack of a basic coordination effort between collection and repair. In this regard, we have noted that the function of parking meter maintenance and repair can be included in an overall package of parking meter contract services as is done in other cities .[19] In this regard, the contractor has guaranteed that parking meters that are reported broken will be back in service on the same day that they were reported out-of-service.
Department of Public Transportation Work Order which Provides for the Counting of Parking Meter Revenues
Parking meter revenue is delivered daily to the Department of Public Transportation (MUNI) Revenue Department for counting on the same day that the coins are collected. The coins are counted and deposited the following day. Examination of this process in other cities found that parking meter revenues were deposited on the same day as their collection.
The conditions and procedures for the MUNI counting process involving both the transit cash box and parking meter collections were reviewed together as part of our 1996 Proposition J management audit of MUNI. At a result of the audit, MUNI agreed to implement improvement to their operations of counting revenues and provide quarterly reports on the progress toward implementing those improvements .[20] In this regard, we have asked the MUNI management to provide us with documentation that support the actions taken by MUNI to implement the recommendations of the Budget Analyst regarding the counting of daily revenues as they pertain to the Parking Meter Program. These recommendations include:
- Development and implementation of a performance standard by which to evaluate the productivity of processing unit staff;
- Development of an on-going incentives program to increase productivity and morale;
- Complete structural improvements of Processing Unit"s area which will ensure the safety of staff; and
- Investigate contracting out for revenue processing services with a qualified vendor. MUNI staff was to report back to the Public Transportation Commission by December 1997.
DPT has indicated that the counting of revenue would be included in their pending Request For Proposal (RFP) involving the replacement of mechanical meters with electronic meters.
Disabled Person"s Placard Enforcement Program
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) estimates that there are approximately 23,000 disabled persons parking placards currently issued to San Francisco registered drivers. In addition, there are about 99,800 disabled persons parking placards currently issued to registered drivers in the neighboring counties of Marin, Contra Costa, Alameda and San Mateo. As many of these placard holders are possible commuters, the number of potential placard users in San Francisco is even greater than the 23,000 San Francisco registered drivers.
Our discussions with DPT management personnel indicate that the improper use of these placards has significantly reduced the potential revenue from parking meters. A disabled placard user may park at most parking meters in the City free of charge for the entire day and therefore may reduce the annual revenue from parking meters by an estimated $4.6 million per year .[21]
To curtail the misuse of disabled person"s placards (DPP), the DPT Enforcement Division has deployed a team of two Parking Control Officers (PCOs) to identify all vehicles displaying a DPP and to request proof of placard registration from the driver of the vehicle. The PCO unit follows a thorough and prudent protocol strategy to determine the proper use of the DPP. Based on an interview with the PCO unit, we offer these suggestions as to improve the current program to curtail the misuse of the placards, as follows:
- The DPT Enforcement Division should maintain its number of enforcement units to its normal strength of two teams, thus increasing its current effort by 100 percent;
- DPT should increase public awareness by expanding efforts to involve the public in providing tips on the misuse of disabled person"s placards. This expansion would increase the amount of information provided to the uniformed PCO teams and would relieve them from some of their time-consuming work, such as initially locating potential violations of the use of such placards;
- DPT should consolidate all of the DPP citations appeals onto one day of the week and to a limited number of hearing officers who would become more familiar with the various appeals and the work of the individual enforcement teams;
- DPT should provide information to the PCO units on those citation appeals that have been ruled in favor of the placard holder. This procedure will provide the PCOs with valuable information as to the reasonableness of the enforcement practices and the thoroughness of documentation for each a citation issued for the misuse of a disabled placard; and
- DPT should work with our State representatives for changes in State legislation that would make for more equitable provisions, including (a) putting a limit on the number of consecutive hours that a placard user can occupy a parking space, and (b) making it more difficult for placard holders who have had their placards confiscated to be able to immediately obtain a replacement from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Conclusion
The City"s current Parking Meter Program is poorly organized and understaffed to attain an efficient and effective program that maximizes parking turnover and revenue collection. At the present time, annual parking revenue collections are $12.8 million, which is only 40.9 percent of an achievable annual collection of $31.3 million (as discussed on page 5 of this Section). Under these conditions the City is losing an estimated $18.5 million in parking meter revenues annually based on several problems in related program staffing and operations.
A portion of those losses in revenue will be reversed with the replacement of the existing mechanical meters with electronic meters. However, there are several other problems with the City"s current Parking Meter Program which could be improved if changes to the current operations and management are made. These changes should be implemented with minimal cost to the City. The changes should provide increased revenues that we estimate to be at least $2.9 million annually.
Recommendations
The Department of Parking and Traffic should:
4.2 Update written policies and procedures for the Parking Maintenance and Repair Units so that the Parking Meter Repairers and Maintenance Machinists know exactly what is expected in the performance of their duties.
4.3 Order replacement parts that would give priority to useful life as well as to overall cost. As noted in this section, springs needed to repair jammed coin catchers are not the correct length and therefore need to be replaced several more times per field repair visit than if the correct size spring were used for the replacement. This results in broken parking meters occurring several times more than should be expected.
4.4 Add one position, a Class 1842 Management Assistant, as discussed on Page 11 of this section, to assist the Parking Meters Collection Manager with the duties associated with collections operations and parking meter security.
4.5 Implement recommendations in this section to streamline the current operation of the Disabled Person"s Placard Enforcement Program.
4.6 Consider other aspects of the City"s Parking Meter Program in the preparation of a Request for Proposal for the replacement of all existing mechanical meters with electronic meters. These considerations would include privatizing the maintenance and repair functions of the Parking Meter Program.
Costs and Benefits
Parking turnover would be improved, short term parking availability would be increased and an estimated $2.9 million annually in increased revenue would be added to the General Fund. That increased revenue would only be offset by $55,000 in annual costs for the addition of one Management Assistant to support the current duties and responsibilities of the Parking Meter Collections Manager. In addition, additional vehicles for the Parking Meter Repairers and more modern communications equipment should be obtained to reduce the time that damaged parking meters are out of service.
- In November 1995, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution urging the Parking and Traffic Commission and the Mayor to install electronic meters throughout the City as soon as practicable. A proposal to fund the installation of electronic meters throughout the City was submitted in FY 1996-97 and again in FY 1997-98 but the Mayor"s Office did not fund these requests.
- Based on the latest inventory completed by the Department of Parking and Traffic Meter Division, dated June 8, 1998, which provides a matrix displaying meter repair districts. These districts are different from the collection routes and zones used to collect the parking meter revenues.
- Fiscal Year 1998-99, Department of Parking and Traffic Program Budget, Phase C, page 42.
- The actual amount of revenue remaining with the Department of Parking and Traffic is $5.2 million because $7.6 million annually is transferred to the Department of Public Transportation (Municipal Railway).
- We estimate that eight percent are broken but can be repaired in the field while the remaining seven percent of total meters have been removed from service for major repair or replacement.
- Based on a daily collection of $5.40 per working meter (9 hours @ $0.60 per hour potential daily collections) times 6 days per week of operation and 50 weeks per year (subtracting 12 holidays).
- Imported candies that are sold in Chinatown and elsewhere that are the exact size and shape of a quarter produced by the United States Mint.
- 22,700 meters times 85% meters in operation times $0.50 times 6 days per week times 50 weeks.
- As of the writing of this report, four provisional appointments for the vacant positions had been made between 2/8/99 and 2/22/99.
- This meter is at a location in close proximity to DPT Administrative Offices at 25 Van Ness Avenue. Parking Meter Repairers have been instructed by management to double their surveillance of such meters because of their nearby location to their main office.
- As of our fieldwork completed on January 11, 1999, 10 parking meter posts have been installed on the Turk to Eddy Street segment of Franklin Street.
- Flange posts must be set in those sidewalks that have basements underneath. Therefore, the posts need extra strengthening which only a Maintenance Machinist is qualified to perform. The Maintenance Machinists are supervised in a separate unit of the Parking Meters Division.
- Parking meter security is the responsibility of the Parking Meter Collections Manager.
- A sixth position is assigned to a combination of work in three other shops: Traffic Signals, Traffic Painting and Signs.
- As of the writing of this report, two provisional appointments for the vacant positions had been made between 2/8/99 and 3/1/99.
- Coin catchers located beneath the meter time mechanism in which the coins are received and accumulated.
- We have previously suggested the distribution of the large canisters be reorganized so that they are assigned each time to the same collection route and therefore could detect a significant drop in the collection of revenue for a particular route.
- There is no District "Q".
- Lockheed Martin is presently the contractor with Washington, DC, providing full service for the installation and maintenance of 15,000 parking meters. Serco Guardian is presently the contractor with the Hong Kong Transport Department, where they are required to manage all aspects of the parking meter operations including enforcement and day-to-day maintenance. Meters that are broken must be brought back into operation within 45 minutes or be replaced with a serviceable unit.
- Management Audit of the San Francisco Municipal Railway, prepared for the Public Transportation Commission, July 1996, pages 111-125.
- Based on conversations with Parking Control Officers assigned to a special unit to enforce proper usage of disable placard. They estimate, based on their day-to-day observations, that at least 10 percent of disabled placard vehicles are in violation of related vehicular statutes.