Baltimore council committee presses DOT for shift-level data as 24-hour parking enforcement continues

Baltimore City Council Land Use & Transportation Committee Chair Ryan Dorsey said the committee was following up on prior hearings about parking enforcement and related technology upgrades, and he noted that the city began 24-hour parking enforcement on March 10.

"By and large, the 24 hour operation is going well," Tavon Braxton, assistant deputy director of operations for the Department of Transportation, told the committee. He added that enforcement activity overnight has allowed DOT to pursue violations that occur outside daytime hours, but that the number of citations does not always reflect overall level of effort.

The committee pressed DOT for more granular data. Councilman Parker asked whether the department could supply attendance by shift and the number of citations issued specifically for the 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. shift over recent months. Parker followed up on a prior request and asked DOT to provide deployment counts for the four shifts and citation totals for April, May and June.

Dorsey and DOT staff described progress on staffing and workflow. DOT reported a recent hiring wave and said headcount for enforcement officers is approaching roughly 97 personnel, though individual shift attendance can fluctuate because of callouts, planned leave and temporary reassignments for traffic incidents or special events.

Webster, a presenter from DOT and the mayor—s office (Mayor—s Office of Performance & Innovation), described planned changes to the public and internal workflows: a single, unified parking-service request type in 3-1-1 scheduled to "go live on the July 25," and subsequent improvements to the Salesforce workers app used by traffic enforcement officers. Webster said map- and queue-related features for the worker app are contingent on a software vendor and are expected to be implemented in phases this fall.

Committee members also discussed abandoned-vehicle handling and cross-agency reporting. DOT described a uniform workflow: initial complaint intake under the single parking SR, investigative steps that can convert a SR to an abandoned-vehicle workflow, and a two-day hold window before a towing request is issued when abandonment is confirmed. DOT said granular reporting on abandoned vehicles will be available on Open Baltimore and can be parsed by agencies or council staff.

What the committee asked for

- DOT to provide attendance counts for enforcement officers by shift (12 a.m.–8 a.m., 6 p.m.–2 a.m., etc.) for the last three months (April–June). - Citation totals specifically for the 12 a.m.–8 a.m. shift for the same period, broken out by violation type where feasible. - A follow-up on the internal plan to separate traffic enforcement duties from parking enforcement and any resulting staffing requirements.

Why it matters

The committee framed these requests as part of evaluating whether the 24-hour schedule produced additional enforcement capacity or simply redistributed existing staff. The data will show if overnight enforcement increased citation output or if staffing constraints and operational reassignments for special events limited the program—s reach.

Speakers

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