Wellington County OPP recently acquired its own fully-marked police cruiser equipped with an automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) system.
In August of 2013, one of four provincially-loaned cruisers with the ALPR system was assigned to the county for a two-week trial period. At that time a number of officers received the specialized training and operated the vehicle around the clock.
“The initiative gave us a real indication of the number of infractions found on the plated vehicles being operated on our roads,” said OPP detachment Inspector Scott Lawson.
An enhancement to the existing program received support with the strategic roll-out of an additional 27 ALPR cruisers across the province taking place in early 2014.
“Through the OPP’s continued partnership with the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) and the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC), Wellington County’s commitment to traffic safety will be reinforced now that we have the dedicated ALPR system to detect violations,” inspector Lawson said.
ALPR is a sophisticated licence plate scanning tool that uses infra-red illumination to capture an image of both the front and back of a vehicle. The system is capable of scanning thousands of plates per hour checking them in real time against an MTO database.
“The expectation is that the ALPR cruiser will be very successful in two ways. Knowing that police have this technology on the roads, it will deter some individuals from operating vehicles with plates in poor standing. Secondly, it will also aid our officers in identifying vehicles that are wanted for a criminal purpose,” Lawson said.
“This is yet another key traffic and public safety tool available to our officers utilizing the latest in technological advances.
“We are very fortunate to have this piece of equipment patrolling Wellington County roads and we intend to make full use of its capabilities.”
