Local AI model reads parking ticket photos to draft appeal letters

TicketBack is an open-source tool that turns two phone photos, one of a parking ticket and one of the sign it was parked under, into an appeal letter. A locally run open-weight model, Gemma 3 4B via Ollama, reads the images, while fixed rules rather than the model determine whether the driver has valid grounds to appeal. The model only drafts the letter after the user confirms the extracted facts, and if no ground exists the tool says so instead of writing a weak appeal. Everything runs on the user's computer, so photos and plate data are not sent elsewhere. The developer built it because small fines are often paid rather than contested, and the project targets individual drivers and small fleets.