Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DRIVE-INS: Car-Counters

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Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 02-20-2008, 03:08 PM:

Since so many drive-ins are operated independently, does anybody still rely on Car-Counters to keep their cashiers honest? We've been testing some more modern counters like parking garages would use, but I stumbled across one of EPRAD's patent details for their Car-Counters and find the detail interesting.

Does anybody still have working car counters and if so who services them? And if somebody out there has updated car counters, what are you using and what are the pros and cons?

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 02-20-2008, 07:14 PM:

Nope....all gone. Too much maintenance; treadles and counters only lasted about a year or two.

Individual owners don't need a counter since it is their own money. There are no "chain" owners left in drive ins. Louis

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 02-20-2008, 08:41 PM:

I accept the logic in that. Except I work for a chain of 6 drive-ins. And then there's DeAnza, they're a chain of drive-ins. Somebody else must have car counters!

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 02-21-2008, 03:48 AM:

Try google, plenty of matches!

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 02-21-2008, 10:44 AM:

We have the remains of a drive-in chain up here. They don't use car counters... and neither do we. Unless you charge by the carload, which these days pretty much puts you close to the wrong side of the DVD window, a car counter would only tell you how many transactions you should have, not what those transactions should be.

You'd probably be better off with a couple of well-placed cameras and a recorder. I had a couple of suspected 'problems' cure themselves within 2 days after I mounted one in the boxoffice. Never did get around to hooking that one up. Didn't need it after that.

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 02-21-2008, 11:34 AM:

We don't have electronic car counters per say, we just do it the old fashioned way with either hand tally counters on slow nights or a separate numbered ticket from generic roll stock tickets on extremely busy nights.

We don't have car load pricing at my place, but we use car counts as part of our equation in figuring nightly report data.

We can look at the nightly numbers and see right away if something doesn't quite look right. On average we are drawing roughly 2.3 - 2.6 adult admissions per vehicle, and average of $14.36 +/- per vehicle in concession sales, and each car spends an average of about $30.00 per night while on the property. If any of those numbers skew way too much, then I know I have a problem.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 02-21-2008, 05:18 PM:

The "point" of car counters is to alert the owner of his manager stealing. Louis

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 02-21-2008, 08:45 PM:

Or the point is also to alert the manager if the cashiers are stealing.

We don't do carload pricing and we do track average number of adults per car etc., but we're still having issues with cashiers not registering 1 or 2 cars and pocketing the charge.

As far as cameras are concerned, how do you run cameras to box offices that are so far from the main building? Our boxes are little tin shacks like these. which offer little to no overnight security.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 02-21-2008, 09:08 PM:

Tele-lenses or wireless cameras. Louis

Posted by Scott McGuire (Member # 4508) on 02-22-2008, 12:17 AM:

Jack said " never did hook that one up" just find some dummy cameras to put in your box office and see if that works. Just the fact that there is a camera there may solve your problem.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 02-22-2008, 05:12 PM:

Fake cameras can do wonders. [thumbsup]

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-22-2008, 05:59 PM:

We used counters only to make sure we didn't go over capacity.

Posted by Tony Ratcliff (Member # 1196) on 02-23-2008, 04:16 PM:

Cashiers scabbing money and reselling tickets was very common when I worked the drive-ins.
One place I worked the manager was the chief thief and taught the cashiers to do it.
And he was able to cover it up, even with a working car counter.

I think that cameras are the best way to keep people honest.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 02-24-2008, 10:45 PM:

Don't want to get too far off-topic here, but... we use the RTS ticketing system. It produces one piece of paper, showing the contents of the entire car. For various reasons, pulling a fast one at our boxoffice is pretty difficult.

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 02-24-2008, 10:48 PM:

Currently we're on cash registers, so they get one receipt for the entire car contents so reselling isn't an issue. The issue is probably more that we don't have what people consider "tickets" like they'd receive at a walk-so they throw out the receipts much like you would your Panda Express or 7-Eleven receipt.

Posted by Scott McGuire (Member # 4508) on 02-25-2008, 01:08 AM:

I understand that a car counter would help you match the number of transactions going through the box to the number of cars being rung up as going through. That still doesn’t tell you how many people are in the car. So I don’t see how a car counter would help. I guess I do not understand your logic behind the need for a car counter to keep a cashier honest. If they want to skim the box they just say a car has 2 people instead of 5 and charge for 5, as you said most people throw the receipt out any way, then they can put the cash for 3 people in their pocket. If you think they are skimming just cut their hours down enough that they will quit or find another job with more hours, then you don’t have to fire them. There is aways someone looking for a job and they can be replaced.
Just came up with a great idea, put in a fake car counter.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 02-25-2008, 10:05 AM:

quote: Scott McGuire
If you think they are skimming just cut their hours down enough that they will quit or find another job with more hours, then you don’t have to fire them.

I have worked with people who used the above method to get rid of people. I think that it is cowardly and dishonest. If you think that someone is stealing from you it is your job as a manager to investigate and terminate the employee, simply cutting ones hours does not ensure that they will quit and also opens them up to be able to file for unemployment. In my opinion if a manager is unable or unwilling to investigate theft/dishonesty, document it, and deal with it in an apropriate manner then they should find another job. I just dont see the need for taking the easy way out.

Posted by Scott McGuire (Member # 4508) on 02-25-2008, 11:51 AM:

I have only had this happen once and it was a family member doing it,i guess that is why we took the easy way out. I'm pretty sure that if someone quits their job they are not eligble for unemployment.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 02-26-2008, 09:53 AM:

Barry's method of multiplying people by the number of cars in the field will bring you closer than you might think.

Past that, the ticket issue is mainly a matter of training. Rather than roll off a whole speech to every customer, we put the important stuff on the ticket, then tell them that's where everything they need to know is. The first thing the ticket says, after the number of paid admits, is "KEEP THIS TICKET." Well, it says a few more things, like the ticket must be presented to any theatre staff, parking and sound information, etc. It gives people a reason to keep it.

You might find out that, given a choice between finding their ticket and being required to leave, most people will miraculously come up with it. Of those left, most will fess up to having more in the car then they paid for (then they leave). Not so many will really go to the effort to actually toss the ticket. At least that's the way it's worked out here.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 02-26-2008, 10:02 AM:

In most states if an employee can prove that thier work hours were drastically cut then that makes them elligible, if not for that then employers could keep workers on the books and just schedule them for no hours and say that they are still employed instead of laying them off, so in order to protect against that if an employee can prove a drastic cut in hours then they can get unemployment.

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 02-26-2008, 06:35 PM:

A local toll bridge had issues with staff theft, they solved these by adding a large display, visible to the driver, which stated the amount paid. They also added a display onto the roof of each pay booth (visible to the management) details of the last transaction.

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 02-26-2008, 09:38 PM:

Mark - that's what made me ask all this in the first place. EPRAD's copyright for one of their car counter systems had that exact thing and for some reason now that you mention it it's not an idea that I've thought of with our recent discussion of computer upgrades at our drive-ins. My concern would be vandalism of the monitors when left un-attended for 3/4 of the day.

Jack - you bring up some great points. Giving people a reason to keep their ticket is great logic. I suppose as a chain we're still climbing back up the hill of getting managers out of the office and into the field to enforce screen-jumping and sneak-ins.

And Sean - I couldn't agree more. Cutting people's hours is never the way to go. All it does is piss them off to the point where if in fact they were stealing, now they're just doing it more and telling everybody else how to do it so that by the time you would have caught them, 3 more people are stealing and now the original culprit just blends in.