Your officers can't compel compliance. Stop training them like they can.
Parking enforcement officers impose unwelcome consequences on the public while holding little or no authority to make anyone accept them. A.C.T. is a safety standard written for that exact position: three questions an officer can recall under adrenaline, one test for when to stay, and a clean way out when staying stops making sense.
Built from more than fifteen years at the curb by William M. Dugann, NPA and IPMI certified.
- AssessWhat am I looking at?
- CommunicateWhat will I do about it?
- TransitionHow will it end?
Borrowed training breaks at the curb
Most enforcement programs hand officers something adapted from policing, retail customer service, or crisis work. Each one quietly assumes the officer can produce an outcome in the other person. Your officers usually cannot, and the gap shows up in three predictable ways.
The authority gap
Every enforced rule rests on the power to take property or liberty. Police carry that power and can compel. Your officers stand at the same point of loss without it, so the tactics that work for a sworn officer can leave a civilian officer stuck in a confrontation they have no way to end.
The compliance trap
When the job seems finished only once the motorist accepts the outcome, officers keep explaining, keep standing there, and keep absorbing escalation long after the conversation stopped doing anything useful, because walking away feels like failing.
The review afterward
An officer who leaves an encounter early gets asked why the citation was not finished. One who stays and gets hurt gets asked why they stayed. Without a written standard, every review becomes a judgment of how things happened to turn out.
One test. Three questions. A defined way out.
A worker should remain directly engaged only while engagement serves a lawful, useful, and reasonably safe purpose.
Read the person, the environment, the stage of the process, and yourself, accurately and before reacting.
Act within the role: short prepared language, open hands, steady voice, and the discipline to stop talking when more words will not help.
Agreement is not required. Route the matter to its proper channel and leave cleanly, which A.C.T. counts as success.
Everyone gets a standard they can actually use
For officers
A model short enough to recall when your heart rate is up, lines you have practiced out loud, permission to leave when the standard fails, and a review standard that judges you by what you could see at the time.
For supervisors
A shared vocabulary for coaching. Instead of "use better judgment," you can ask what the officer was looking at, what they did about it, and how it ended, and you can tell a near miss from a mistake.
For operators
A defensible, documented standard for training, incident review and complaints, conduct that reads clearly on body cameras and bystander video, and verifiable credentials you can show a client or a city council.
From first login to a verifiable certificate
Officers must recall the doctrine at the curb without a manual, so A.C.T. certification ends the way the job does: out loud.
Learn online
Six focused lessons on the position, the standard, and each of the three questions, about two and a half hours in total.
Pass the checks
A short knowledge check closes every lesson. Officers need 80 percent to move forward, with explanations for every answer.
Say it out loud
A certified instructor runs a structured verbal assessment against a six-item rubric, including a scenario they choose.
Get verified
Officers receive a numbered certificate valid for 24 months that anyone can confirm at the public verification page.
Free doctrine. Certified instruction.
The standard and the field card are free for anyone to use. Certification is how an operation proves its people were taught it correctly.
The Standard
The governing standard, the three questions, the printable field card, and the officer field guide.
Get the free resourcesField Certification
Online lessons, knowledge checks, verbal assessment, and a verifiable 24-month certificate.
See plansInstructor Certification
Certified instructors run verbal assessments and certify officers inside their own operation.
How it worksBe one of the first programs built on A.C.T.
A.C.T. is newly published. The first operations to adopt it get pilot pricing on seats and instructor training, a direct line to the author while the program grows, and early placement in the accredited program registry once they qualify.
What a pilot looks like
- A leadership briefing on the standard and its organizational commitments
- Instructor Certification for one or two of your trainers
- Field Certification seats for a first group of officers
- A review of how your incident and complaint process fits the standard
Agencies can pay by purchase order. See what adoption involves.
Written by someone who has stood at the curb
William M. Dugann began writing parking citations in 2011 and has spent more than fifteen years in curbside management and compliance operations, from field enforcement to supervision to running operations. A.C.T. started in 2021 with three questions every encounter eventually forces on the officer.
Is A.C.T. a de-escalation program?
In practice, yes. Its communication guidance is chosen because it tends to settle encounters. The difference is that success never depends on the other person calming down. A.C.T. governs the officer's own conduct and gives them a defined endpoint.
Does it tell officers to walk away from the job?
It tells them when continued engagement stops serving a lawful, useful, and reasonably safe purpose, and routes the matter to its proper channel. Most encounters never get there. When one does, leaving is the professional choice, and what happens to unfinished work is an administrative decision.
Our officers have limited police powers. Does it still apply?
Yes. A.C.T. takes no position on what authority officers should hold. It asks that any authority an operation grants come with training sufficient to use it, and its standard is measured against the authority your officers actually have.
Do we need body cameras?
No. Cameras help where an operation can use them well, and A.C.T. conduct is designed to read clearly on them, but nothing in the standard depends on footage.
Can our own trainers certify officers?
Yes. Trainers who earn Instructor Certification can run verbal assessments and issue Field Certifications to officers in their own organization from the portal.
How do public agencies pay?
By card or by invoice. Choose invoice at checkout, add a purchase order number, and seats are released when payment is received.