What is E-Chalking (Virtual Chalking)?
- Virtual chalking, or e-chalking is an electronic process that mirrors how an officer would manually chalk a vehicle's tire, in order to see how long they have been parked
- Virtual chalking creates a Time-Stamped image, of both the license plate & the entire car, in order to track how long they've been parked
- Virtual chalking provides an image that can be attached to the violation and is acceptable in a court-of-law, provided the date/time stamp is visible & clear.
- When LPR software is capturing plates, officers can simply click "Virtual Chalk" to create/save the image
Note:
If a manual plate entry is performed, then an image must be captured manually to be added in the vehicles information/violation.
The image that exists in the system from a chalk is part of the violation, unless the patrol officer deletes the image.
When issuing a violation, the handheld device will use the chalked image as the first image for this violation. At that time, a patrol officer can take additional photos if necessary.
The Time Stamp shows the date & time that the image was taken, in the bottom right-hand corner of the image.
- Effectively, the chalk image has a stamp of the time/date the vehicle was first chalked on file
- This time-stamp can be used later as a reference picture to determine whether or not a violation should be issued
- If a violation is issued, the chalk image becomes one of the first images associated with this violation
- The image is stored, UNLESS the patrol officer deletes the image.
Why "Chalk" a Vehicle?
- The process of chalking a vehicle is quickly simplified using OPS-COM. The handheld units can virtual chalk & time-stamp images of the license plates as plates are being scanned (in the case of LPR) and are recorded/saved. If a violation is issued, that chalk-image is the first image connected with the violation
- Chalking vehicles manually is time consuming, so being able to virtually-chalk vehicles makes a time-efficient solution for a necessary aspect of parking management
- There are a multitude of reasons to chalk vehicles;
- Most prevalent being that by e-chalking a vehicle, you are able to track duration of parking, if the vehicle is parked in a time-limited lot
- Allows you to manage violations and potential violations in a time-saving manner, as officers are no longer needing to get out of the vehicle to manually chalk it.
- Stores photographic evidence that could be used as proof should a violation be issued and then appealed