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US Police Department roll out Appian's Talon mobile ALPR system

Police hope to find more stolen cars in Tracy now that they have a license plate scanning system that can check hundreds of plates during a routine patrol. The ALPR system reads every license plate it encounters and alerts the officer when it’s found a stolen car. The core recognition technology was supplied by UK company Appian technology through thier US partner Civica software.

In the past, an officer had to call a dispatcher to check a suspicious license plate through the Department of Justice database. The PlateScan system does the same thing without officer intervention. A camera in the police cruiser automatically scans the license plates of cars in front of and behind the patrol car, and an on-board computer does the rest.

“You turn it on and go,” said Detective Dan Pasquale, whose car was equipped with the new system last week. “It’s hands free. You don’t have to think about it at all.” In the first few hours after Tracy turned on its 'PlateScan' system, Pasquale found a stolen car while he was driving in Modesto. Something similar occurred in Manteca during a tryout, when a patrolman found a stolen car in a few minutes.

Manteca police ordered a plate scanning system for one of its patrol cars there, said department spokesman Rex Osborn. Other police agencies that use the PlateScan system are Los Angeles, Vallejo, Sacramento and Newport Beach. Getting immediate results is the system’s biggest asset, officers say.

“I’m hoping to recover stolen cars quicker,” Pasquale said. “You don’t have to type anything in; you just drive.” The Tracy Police Department’s PlateScan system cost $17,078, paid for by a state grant.

The officer can see a photo or video of every scanned vehicle, one per second, on a small touch screen monitor that is mounted on the dashboard.When a stolen car is identified, a woman’s voice says “stolen car” through the car’s stereo system speakers and identifies which camera found it. In addition to stolen cars, the computer can also be programmed to look for vehicles from Amber Alerts, high-profile crimes or partial license plate numbers from recent crimes.

The technology is nothing new in England, which uses the automatic license plate recognition system to fight terrorism.

“It’s used to protect central London,” said Mark Kelly, president of PlateScan. He said the idea came out of an Irish Republican Army bombing in London in 1993. “It’s gaining a ton of interest in the U.S.,” he said.