According to a request for proposals (RFP) from the department, “The desirable solution will serve as the main tool for processing reservations for shelters and campgrounds, point-of-sale transactions, maintain an inventory of Pinellas County rental properties, and log annual and semi-annual permit purchases for boat and beach access.”
The department maintains more than 20,000 acres and operates 21 parks and preserves.
From Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023, approximately 40,171 campground reservations, 9,967 picnic shelter reservations and 5,502 boat ramp and beach access permits were processed.
According to the RFP, current system functionality includes the following:
- “The system displays a full 210 days. This allows someone to select the 209th day, and if they want to book a 14-day reservation, they must wake up each night at midnight to reserve the next day. If they don’t successfully reserve the next day, they risk having to move campsites each night.”
- As for acquiring data, campground registrants’ vehicle data is obtained during reservation intakes. A daily list is manually exported from the department’s reservation system into Excel and uploaded to license plate recognition software two to three times per day, proving time-consuming and inefficient.
As a result, the county seeks a new system with the following functionality:
- “The system is set to allow 210 days into the future, but with an additional setting to instruct the system to only initially display up to 196 days into the future. When a customer selects a start date within a 14-day window of the 210-day cutoff, the system will display additional dates, allowing the customer to book up to a full 14-day reservation at one time.”
- Also on the county’s wish list is “an automated 30-minute integration with parking enforcement system vendors for license plate recognition and parking enforcement (currently Vigilant and IPS).” This would include the vehicle plate number, state or province, and the effective date for all passes and campground reservations.
More information about 24-0719-RFP can be found online. All vendor proposals are due at 3 p.m. on Sept. 26.
