eCitation System
The City of Peoria Municipal Court and the Police Department have partnered on a new citation system that will improve the efficiency and accuracy of citations issued by the Peoria Police Department.
“eCitation” is a program where the officer carries a hand-held unit to complete the citation. The unit scans the magnetic strip or bar code on the driver’s license and registration and automatically fills in the information on the citation. It also uses a drop down menu for the officer to pick the violation from. We often hear from citizens that have been cited that they can’t read the officers writing thus leading to confusion. This problem also occurs with the Municipal Court staff and makes helping the citizens through the process much more difficult. Nobody likes receiving a citation and this new system will help remove some of the confusion that makes the process so frustrating for all involved.
The “eCitation” system is currently being used by 15 officers assigned to the Peoria Police Department Traffic Services Section. This system uses the hand-held unit that the officers put in a docking station at the end of their shift and the citation information is down-loaded in to the computer data base at the court. The process removes the necessity of dealing with the multi-part citations and the need to manually enter the information by court staff.
What are the advantages to eCitation?
- It significantly saves time for both court staff and Police officers, automatically uploading citation information directly in to the court docket at the end of each officer’s shift,
- it clarifies the information for the defendant by eliminating handwriting, reducing confusion, and
- dramatically reduces errors due to manual input.
How are the two citations different? There are two major differences.
- The appearance, the normal citation issued by Peoria officers is a 5 part, standard size paper that the officer completes by hand. The eCitation is a single sheet of paper about 5 inches wide by 18 inches long.
- The location information of the court is different. On a regular citation the address for the court is on the bottom. With the eCitation the address for the court is at the top where its easy to find and again easy to read and the unit prints the court information on the citation.
- The information regarding the officer is easy to read for the citizen and the court as it is printed on the citation by the unit so there is no confusion on who the officer is that issued the citations.
Click here to view a comparison of the eCitation to a standard citation »
