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Municipal Violations and Collections

The Municipal Violations and Collections process allows Ontario-based municipal clients to manage violation offenses through the Provincial Offenses Act (POA) or the Administrative Monetary Penalty System (AMPS). Its primary purpose is to automate the retrieval of vehicle owner data from the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) for unregistered vehicles, facilitating the distribution of notice letters and processing for court collections. This article is intended for OPS-COM administrators managing municipal parking enforcement workflows.

Setup and Configuration

Before utilizing the MTO lookup and Court Requested Conviction (CRC) workflows, your municipality must be approved by the MTO as an Authorized Requester. Contact ARIS@ontario.ca to request a RAW data account.

Once approved, administrators must configure four specific provincial codes within the system to ensure compatibility with the Ontario court system.

  1. Hover over System Configuration and click System Settings.

  2. Select the Collections component.

  3. Enter the required values into the following designated fields based on your specific municipality:

    • Case Court: A 4-digit number (e.g., 3060).

    • Case Jurisdiction: A 3-digit number (e.g., 658).

    • Agency Code: 3 alphanumeric characters followed by 3 numbers (e.g., BYL390).

    • Disbursement Code: 1 alphanumeric character followed by 3 numbers (e.g., M525).

  4. Click the Save Settings button.

If your municipality uses an extra-detailed version of the notice letter where one notice is sent out for each individual violation rather than in bulk, you must disable the Include All Unpaid Violations setting within this same configuration menu.

Using this Feature

The lifecycle of a municipal violation involves several stages of exporting data, importing MTO responses, and escalating unpaid tickets.

Exporting Data for the MTO

When violations reach a specific age of non-payment (e.g., 15 days), administrators export the unknown vehicle data to request owner information from the MTO.

  1. Hover over Violations and click Collections then Vehicle Lookup Export.

  2. Configure your search criteria using the Minimum number of violations, Vehicle province or state, and Date range fields.

  3. Click the export format button that matches your account type (e.g., Aris Raw Data Account or Aris Abstract Account).

  4. The system will generate and download a text file formatted for the MTO.

Importing the MTO Response File

Once the MTO returns the file containing the registered owner information, it must be imported into the system to generate notice letters.

  1. Hover over Violations and click Collections then Vehicle Lookup Import.

  2. Click to choose the returned MTO file from your local computer.

  3. Click the Import button. A confirmation message will appear in the top right of the page once complete.

  4. You can now generate and print your mail-out notices using the Notice Letter Report page.

Sending Violations to Court

If a ticket remains unpaid after notice letters are sent (e.g., on day 65), it is eligible to be sent to the Ontario court system for collections.

  1. Hover over Violations and click Collections then Send to Court.

  2. Specify the number of days since the violation was issued to filter the list.

  3. Apply any required administrative fees using the provided field.

  4. Click the export button to generate the required text file for the Ontario court system.

  5. To generate a printable summary of these cases for your court date, hover over Violations and click Collections then Sent to Court Report, and click Export.

Flagging Paid Records from Court

When the court provides a report indicating a violation was successfully paid, it must be manually updated in OPS-COM.

  1. Hover over Violations and click Collections then Flag as Paid by Court.

  2. Enter the applicable date range and click the Search button.

  3. Select the specific violations that were resolved.

  4. Click the Flag as paid button. These tickets will now appear on the Daily Processed Report with a payment type of paid by court.

Best Practices and Considerations

[!WARNING] MTO Data Purging (ARIS Rules): ARIS regulations dictate that information retrieved from the MTO is only temporarily stored within the OPS-COM system. Once a violation has been cancelled, paid, or sent to collections, all associated MTO personal data will be automatically and permanently purged from the system.

  • Establish a Schedule: Organizations should develop a strict, recurring schedule for their violation lifecycle (e.g., exporting MTO lookups every Monday for tickets reaching 15 days old, and sending tickets to court every Friday for tickets reaching 65 days old) to maintain compliance and steady revenue recovery.

  • Testing with Simulators: If you need to test your import workflow before receiving live data back from the MTO, you can generate a mock response file using the Third Party Simulators tool.

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