ISP to begin using electronic ticketing system on Thursday

On Thursday the Idaho State Police will begin using an electronic system to issue traffic citations.

The system was purchased with a $900,000 Federal Recovery Act grant awarded to ISP last fall. The system, dubbed "E-Ticketing", will allow for quicker, more accurate citations which will be transmitted electronically to the courts' and ISP's computer data bases.

Captain Eric Dayley, the statewide project manager for ISP's E-Ticketing program said, "E-Ticketing will bring vast improvements to a process that hasn't had any major changes in the past 50 years."

The E-Ticketing process works like this - if a trooper decides to issue a citation to a driver, the driver's license information and the vehicle's registration information will be scanned into the E-Ticketing software using handheld barcode scanners.

The trooper will then be able to select from dropdown lists, violation codes and location identifiers. The citation will then be printed out on a 4-inch printer similar to printers used in department stores.

Dayley points out that "The entire process of completing citations will go from a 5-minute process to one that takes less than a minute. This will result in reduced time on the side of the highway for our troopers and the public, which is safer for both."

Another benefit of this system is the accuracy of the data collected.

"The court clerks will no longer have to decipher officers' handwriting or citations where the copy did not come through clearly" Dayley continued. The accuracy of citation data is estimated to increase by at least 10 percent.

Another change in the ticket issuing process that will start with E-Ticketing is that people who receive E-Tickets will no longer have to sign the ticket. The trooper will just print it out, hand it to the person and then they can be on their way. The entire citation serving process will be streamlined and more efficient.