Short answer: Jordan Metzner says LA ticket data runs about two days behind because officers upload tickets later, so live tracking is not possible. He says he read the parking division is cash flow negative.
Watch this answer from Episode 15 (starts at 6:22) · Episode 15 notes and transcript
From Episode 15: Sora 2 Took Over AI Video + Our New Parking Data Tool, starting at 6:22.
Sam Nadler [6:21]: Yeah. What you mentioned that the San Francisco version was using live data. This is not live data. Correct? And what over what period of time is this data? And could you utilize live data? So you could, literally open up that application and be like, they're not in this area. I could probably get away with it for the next hour.
Jordan Metzner [6:42]: Great question. So when I looked at the dataset, first, I had some parking tickets that were actually given in the future. And so that meant to me that, there were some missed dates or an officer had labeled, writing written 2026 instead of 2025. So I actually found some parking tickets that were written for November, December of this year, which hasn't happened yet. But when I looked at the data set, it was about two days delayed. So it looks like officers kind of write their tickets on the street, and then they upload it into the system. And so if I recall correctly, I was first download this data, I think around September 24, and I think the newest tickets were from September 22. So about a two day delay in seeing the data online, which means, like, not ability to get live data. I tried very hard. When I saw that that there were the tickets kind of in the future, I thought, oh, wow. I mean, maybe these tickets are getting uploaded in real time. But yeah. Then I realized kind of like everything's about a two day delay. So not the same ability to kind of see where officers are, right now or on a map or anything like that. And I think that's probably makes it, a little bit safer for officers as well just if you're looking at this dataset.
Jordan Metzner [7:48]: But, yeah, I think, I just the city and the technology doesn't doesn't offer real time datasets.
Sam Nadler [7:55]: Yeah. Well, just looking at the patterns here, I mean, looking at the valley, you could probably, justify if your goal is to avoid parking tickets, which it probably shouldn't be, but just for the sake of this conversation, you could probably, justify parking just a couple blocks off Ventura. It looks like they pretty much stick to Ventura Boulevard and, avoid getting a parking ticket. But either way, I mean, it's a I think it's a really fun use case. Pretty amazing what you can do with available APIs for a bunch of different use case and just represent data and drive informed decision makings in a really, really quick and easy way.
Jordan Metzner [8:34]: I mean, yeah, as you mentioned about Ventura Boulevard, these are all expired meters. You know? So, I filtered here by meter expiration. So, this is where the meters are located, but, don't let your meter expire on Ventura or it looks like you're probably gonna get a ticket. You know? And it looks like there's a huge stretch here between Sherman Oaks and Encino where they just simply either don't have meters or they're not highly enforced. But, kinda once you pass this street right here, looks like this is kinda no man's land. So I think that's super interesting. Just like an interesting way to look at the data. If I had more data, it might show some different behavior patterns. But I think this is just like the beginning of, giving, residents and citizens access to their city's data to be able to look at it in different ways. And, I think, we have open records. We have Freedom of Information Act. And this is just one more way where, residents can take advantage of leveraging the data in their own town and see what the impact is. In this case, parking tickets.
Jordan Metzner [9:35]: And you can even see, I mean, this isn't even that much money. I mean, 20,000, 11,000, 12,000. I mean, I don't know exactly the time period this was over, but, it's simply just not a significant amount of revenue for a city as large as Los Angeles. So, what is the purpose here? Is this even efficient? I believe I read a few months ago that the actual parking division was cash flow negative, meaning that they generate more costs than issues they than tickets they generate in revenues. And so, really, what are we trying to do here? If we just eliminated this parking department, would we end up saving money and, have a better quality of life and society, etcetera. So, yeah, hopefully, that's a little background on my parking app, and I hope you like it.
