About the only time a person is happy to see a tow truck is when they are waiting on emergency road service. Having your car towed by mistake can be unnerving and infuriating and it has been known to happen. Having you car towed for cause can also be frustrating. The confusion that can ensue when a city employs a number of towing contractors can compound problems.

A small New England town has implemented a solution to this aspect of tow business blues.

The Challenge:
“Public administrators in a New England town had a problem: a large number of illegally parked cars — and the associated paperwork received from the town’s ten towing contractors.

The town’s supervisor of transportation considered custom mobile applications to streamline the process, but their budget could not cover the considerable costs and they didn’t want to wait months for development.

The Solution:
The town created a Portable Forms application for its towing contractors. Now, tow truck drivers use handheld devices to document each car’s license, type, color and VIN number – information the town needs to record the transaction and to reconcile against their accounts payable system.

As the towing contractors transmit the information to the town, Portable Forms sends a fax to the local police and a second fax goes to town hall. It also automatically delivers an Internet data feed. ”
(source)