Law Enforcement

ALPR applications for law enforcement

• Suspended and revoked licenses

  Our advanced ALPR system technology dramatically increases the number of suspended and revoked drivers removed from the road. Our ALPR system offers these benefits:

  • Proactively hunts for license plates belonging to suspended/revoked drivers, uninsured vehicles and unregistered vehicles.
  • Instantly recognizes those vehicles and alerts officers so interdiction can take place.
  • Multiplies the force and effectiveness of every officer looking for suspended drivers.

  With superior algorithm technology, no other ALPR system comes close to its ease of deployment, capabilities and accuracy.

   

• Recovered stolen license plates and vehicles

  Police officers  are more quickly recovering stolen license plates and vehicles as they go about their normal duties each shift. That's because the ALPR system is running plate after plate against hot lists of stolen license plates and vehicles, sending  instantaneous alarms that a suspect plate or vehicle is in the immediate area.

  Recovering plates and vehicles, as well as removing drivers with suspended or revoked licenses from the streets, has a tremendous impact on safety. It also benefits the insurance industry, because fewer claims are being paid out.

   

• Homeland security

  Most crimes and terrorist activities worldwide involve vehicles. In geographic areas that are experiencing a surge in vehicle-related crime, monitoring and tracking a large number of vehicles efficiently becomes prudent for law enforcement.

  Leonardo works closely with law enforcement and homeland security agencies globally to create customized ALPR solutions for effective and quick policing of:

  • Tracking gang-related crime
  • Tracking persons and vehicles of interest moving across jurisdictions
  • Drug trafficking
  • Illegal immigration
  • Anti-terrorism
  • Border protection
  • Collection of appropriate taxes and duties

   

• Access control and retail applications

  ALPR technology also has a more civil purpose, in terms of access control and retail applications. For example, an owner of a car wash could put up an ALPR camera at an automatic washing bay.

  Every time a car pulls up, the camera reads the license plate and validates a subscription against a white list of subscribers, so the driver can go ahead and use the car wash. Imagine how much more convenient ALPR cameras could make your retail business.

   

• Campus and school bus safety

  Police agencies for schools and colleges are using Leonardo’s ALPR technology to help manage two of the most important operations they serve — security and illegal parking. By arranging fixed ALPR systems in key places around campus, or by deploying mobile ALPR units, the technology creates a powerful virtual policing agent.

  Illegal parking causes not only safety issues but also headaches for the administration charged with collecting parking fines, especially from repeat offenders delinquent on paying up.

   

• Missing persons

  Our ALPR systems receive AMBER and Silver alerts, so officers in the field are aware of urgent matters involving abducted or missing persons.

  With Silver alert cases, if a senior citizen with dementia, for example, is driving a car and gets lost or disoriented, a family member would call police for help finding them. Police can use their license plate recognition system by entering the missing car's license plate number into a shared hot list, allowing every law enforcement car outfitted with the ALPR technology to search for the missing vehicle. Once the license plate reader sees the matching plate, it will alert officers immediately.

  In the case of AMBER Alerts or suspected abductions, even if only a partial plate number is known, it can be entered into the law enforcement hot list, and the license plate recognition system will produce a list of possible plate numbers based on state syntax. Other information, such as the color, make or model of the suspect vehicle, can help narrow down that list of possible complete license plate numbers even further.

  Often, multiple agencies in a state that use ALPR technology, or even adjacent jurisdictions that cross state lines, will work together to search faster and bring quick closure to cases involving missing persons. Leonardo's automatic license plate readers, both fixed and mobile systems, are deployed by more than 4,000 agencies across all 50 U.S. states and in many countries around the world.

   

• Surveillance and private security

  Surveillance missions can be very time intensive, tying up manpower for weeks or months at a time. Leonardo's  ELSAG ALPR solutions, both fixed and mobile plate readers, are extremely effective surveillance tools for capturing critical data while freeing up officers to perform other duties until needed.

  With the capability to read up to 900 plates per minute, per camera, it's almost impossible for a vehicle to pass through a surveillance area undetected. If any ALPR camera, fixed or mobile, reads a license plate that is included on an active law enforcement hot list, the plate reader will  automatically alert officers in the field, as well as their command center, to when and where the suspect vehicle was seen.

  This real-time surveillance capability of our ALPR technology has been credited with aiding U.S. law enforcement in the resolution of illegal activity from misdemeanors to serious crimes.

  Leonardo's ALPR technology also assists investigations when the data collected is downloaded from the ALPR systems and stored for analysis. Detectives can sift through the information, which can help with placing a suspect at a scene, identifying travel patterns of suspects or detecting associates by identifying vehicles that always travel together.

  License plate reader data can help locate potential witnesses and can assist in validating an alibi by confirming a vehicle's previous location.

   

• Commercial vehicle enforcement

  The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has developed a new hot list allowing law enforcement agencies to use Leonardo's ALPR technology to help investigate illegal actions by commercial motor vehicles (CMV) and their drivers.

  Deployed and supervised by the Department of Transportation (DOT) for each state, the license plate readers quickly and accurately identify the license plates of vehicles with several prior citations. While these aren't the only vehicles scrutinized, most drivers with no prior citations will benefit from a more efficient trip through weigh stations and other checkpoints.

  And since the ALPR technology is already in place, state law enforcement may choose to use additional hot lists associated with all kinds of illegal activity, from stolen vehicles and tags to unregistered vehicles, missing persons, wanted persons and more.

   

• Fusion centers and interagency sharing

  The efficiency and effectiveness of Leonardo's ALPR technology in aiding a variety of public safety challenges is encouraging many states to deploy the technology statewide. Most recently, New York, Maryland, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Washington, D.C. have all committed to programs that will allow jurisdictions to share their ALPR data in an effort to resolve cases faster.

  Our ALPR system reads license plates instantaneously and then automatically cross-references each against current hot lists. If there is a match, law enforcement  units in the field and their command centers are alerted in real time with information about when and where the suspect vehicle was located, along with the license plate number that triggered the alarm.

   

• Drug-related offenses

  Our  ALPR technology has been proven to aid law enforcement in efforts to deter and resolve drug-related activity. Fundamentally, the ALPR system reads license plates at the rate of up to 900 per minute, comparing each to a hot list of vehicles suspected of being associated with drug-related offenses or incidents.

  When an ALPR camera reads a license plate included on that hot list, alarms are broadcast in real time to the officer using the system, the agency command center and other officers in the field, depending on how the ALPR system is configured. ALPR alarm information tells officers which vehicle caused the alarm, at what time and the location of the suspect vehicle when the plate was scanned. The car and driver can be tracked down quickly and safely for interdiction.

  Leonardo's ALPR data  also aids investigations, even carrying weight in criminal trials. It begins with the information collected for each and every license plate the ALPR system reads, which includes license plate number, date and time stamps, GPS coordinates, and a color photo showing a significant portion of the vehicle and its immediate environment. With each ALPR camera collecting this data for up to 900 license plates per minute, investigators have vast amounts of information to work with.

  Detectives can review all of this data for specific periods of time and possibly decipher important information, such as confirming a dealer or trafficking suspect at a scene, identifying traffic patterns, discovering vehicles that always travel together and identifying possible witnesses. Combined with data shared by other agencies, there's almost no place for drug dealers, traffickers and users to hide.