November 15, 2022
Police Department
DATE: November 15, 2022
TO: Mayor Butt and Members of the City Council
FROM:
Bisa French, Chief of Police
Subject:
Three-Year Contract with Data Ticket
FINANCIAL IMPACT: Proposed contract will not exceed $30,000 over three years; approximately $5,000 will be expended by June
30, 2023, and is included in the Police Department’s
approved budget (account string 01191021-400209).
PREVIOUS COUNCIL
ACTION:
None.
STATEMENT OF THE
ISSUE:
The Police Department is requesting City Council
approval of a three-year contract with Data Ticket, Inc. to provide parking citation software and payment collection services.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
APPROVE a three-year contract with Data Ticket, Inc.,
from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2026, to
provide parking citation software and payment collection services, in an amount not to exceed $30,000, with two
one-year options to renew the contract based on the
same terms if approved by both parties - Police
Department (Chief Bisa French 510-621-1802). .
AGENDA
REPORT
November 15, 2022
DISCUSSION:
Following best practices set forth by the City’s Purchasing division, the Police Department (RPD) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit bids for parking citation and payment collection services that are currently handled by T2 Systems, Inc.
T2 Systems, Inc. has been our vendor for such services the past seven years, but their contract expiration is set for December 31, 2022.
During the RFP evaluation, six vendors submitted proposals; however, only three vendors were selected for a formal review by a panel of judges based on price and offered services. Upon further review, one of the three vendors were eliminated due to the initial startup costs that would exceed early revenue predictions - leaving two vendors to interview. The two remaining vendors included T2 Systems, Inc. and Data Ticket, Inc.
T2 Systems has had the benefit of providing us with a functioning system the past seven years, but Data Ticket’s thirty plus years of experience was reflected well during their presentation. Both vendors presented viable software solutions with user friendly interfaces; however, Data Ticket software had more tools that RPD personnel valued compared to T2’s, which included an easy timed parking tool that could be shared amongst several officers, a high-functioning Optical Character Recognition (OCR) platform with room to expand, a handicap placard lookup and confirmation, a great public user interface, and user-friendly customizable reports.
Data Ticket’s cost plan was the lowest of the RFP respondents. Comparing Data Ticket to T2 Systems, Data Ticket charges an annual software license of $150/unit, totaling $450 annually for three (3) units or $37.50/month, along with the ability to purchase and/or use the current hardware owned by the City of Richmond. T2’s monthly cost for software and two (2) support licenses is $404.15/month, or $366.65/month more.
Additionally, both companies bill on a per citation basis for processing. Data Tickets per citation cost is $0.45 (or $0.50 if manually entered), compared with T2’s of $0.75. The per citation cost covers the cost to run the public facing and City of Richmond website, where offenders can pay online, as well as the customer support phone line.
Additionally, both companies offer options to either pass along the offender’s citation payment and remit it to the City as collected or will hold the payments in escrow and settle the net revenue, after deducting the per citation and monthly fees, with a check made payable to the City of Richmond or send an invoice requesting payment from the City of Richmond.
Vendor Data Ticket T2 Cardinal iParq
Annual
Software Fee
$450
(3 units)
$4,850
(2 units)
$5,943
(4 units)
$3,048
(3 units)
Citation
Processing
(per citation)
$0.45 $0.75 n/a* $1.10
November 15, 2022
Example: 100
citations
issued
annually
$45.00 $75.00 $0.00 $110.00
Total Annual
Cost
$495.00 $4,925.00 $5,943.00 $3,158.00
*For Cardinal to breakeven with Data Ticket, the City of Richmond would have to issue over twelve-thousand (12,000) citations in a year. With current staffing and department priorities, less than 1,000 are issued a year and no major changes are planned for the near future ($5,943-$450=$5,493/$0.45=12,206.67).
For industry cost comparison, Cardinal Tracking Inc.’s proposal had a year one cost of $71,317, or $5,943/month, and iParq had a one-time set up fee of $4,620, an annual fee of $5,050, a monthly fee of $1,335 for software maintenance, and a per unit cost of $302.50/month (3 units would total $907.50), plus $1.10 per citation issued. iParq’s total monthly cost would be at least $3,048.
In the end, a comparison of randomly selected parking enforcement revenue months was used to compare total costs between Data Ticket and T2 Systems. Data Ticket’s cost plan was able to beat T2’s proposal and will be beneficial to RPD for at least the next three years based on current citation revenue projections, at which point RPD will have an option to renew.
DOCUMENTS ATTACHED:
Attachment 1 – Original Contract
Attachment 2 – RFP
Attachment 3 – RFP Rating Matrix