Reducing Redundancy on the Roadside
May 29, 2020 by Kate Nadolski
In the mission-critical world of public safety, efficiency is key.
For the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois, it was important for sworn officers and civilian staff to have a tool that could expedite the citation process and keep officers safer on the roadside.
“We had an automated ticketing solution for years,” said Lt. Trent Bukowski of the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office. “But it had an array of issues. We were losing connection to the server, and we couldn’t print from the car. We spent a lot of time on the traffic stop that wasn’t necessarily needed.”
For the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office, obtaining a new system was the only option.
“One of the most important factors that we considered before selecting and implementing a new e-ticketing solution was the logistics surrounding writing multiple citations to a single motorist,” Bukowski said. “After using a solution that required us to rewrite all tickets on a single stop, we knew we weren’t offering the best services to our community or our officers.”
Now, the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office can write multiple offenses on one ticket, and they can do it quickly.
“What our officers are doing out in the field now in situations where they are writing multiple offenses is as simple as copying the ticket, changing a few of the necessary characteristics filled out – such as the specific violation – and finishing the process much sooner,” Bukowski said. “This ultimately cuts back on the time our officers spend in the car preparing the citation, which we consider to be abundantly critical to our officers on the road. Prior to switching from our legacy vendor, we had an array of issues. We were losing connection to the server and we couldn’t print from the car. We spent a lot of time on the traffic stop that wasn’t necessarily needed."
Bukowski said when the department was looking for new software, they knew exactly what they wanted.
“One of the most important factors that we considered when choosing an electronic citation vendor was the logistics associated with issuing multiple citations to a single motorist,” explained Bukowski. “Our legacy vendor required our officers to completely re-write all tickets on a single stop. This would require our officers to spend several minutes simply redundantly typing in the same information that they’ve already acquired and listed on a companion ticket.”
With the capabilities of the system the sheriff’s office now uses, they can reduce the time officers spend issuing citations, which gets them off the roadside faster.