Waco police officials say a new patrol car camera system that can read thousands of license plates per hour will help them find stolen cars and people with outstanding warrants.

The Waco City Council approved $65,000 for an automatic license plate recognition system that includes cameras for two patrol cars and an electronic system that compares license numbers to crime databases.

If it’s successful, the police department will look to equip more cars at a cost of about $16,000 per car, Assistant Chief Ryan Holt said.

Holt said some patrol officers already do spot checks of license plates, entering them manually into their mobile computers. The new system should vastly improve the officers’ effectiveness, he said.

The system from PIPS Technology uses four mounted cameras that can scan roads for license plates. It can operate whether the patrol car is parked or zooming down a highway.

The image is sent wirelessly to a police department computer that will read it and compare it to lists of stolen cars.

When one is found, the patrol officer in the field will be automatically alerted. The system also could be used when police are searching for a violent criminal.

“We’re going to start off with stolen vehicles,” Holt said. “Other agencies have successfully used them from an investigation standpoint.”

In the future, the computers also could search for wanted or missing people, and the data even could be used in court to prove or disprove an alibi.

Some cities, such as London and Washington, D.C., have used license plate recognition as a counterterrorism tool.

Holt said license plate recognition is a proven technology that has been used widely for more than a decade.

Since its development in England in the 1970s, it has become mainstream in large and midsized U.S. cities.

In Texas, the cities include Houston, Beaumont, Tyler and several Dallas suburbs.

The city of Tyler’s marshal’s office bought five camera systems for its patrol cars in August 2008. The city marshal’s office is in charge of serving warrants to people to appear in municipal court.

During six months in 2009, the license plate system resulted in 347 arrests, and 917 outstanding warrants were cleared, Tyler City Marshal Jay Hudnall said.

“I would consider it a success,” Hudnall said. “With the revenue we collected, the system paid for itself in less than a year.”

Hudnall said the marshals use the cameras while driving around town and sometimes make sweeps of intersections and parking lots.

Cars whose owners have multiple parking violations get a red card warning them to come to court. If the warning is not heeded, the car will be immobilized with a “boot.”

“For every red card we put on, eight of 10 people will come and pay,” Hudnall said. “They know they’ve been found, and if they don’t pay it, they’ll be unable to drive.”

The marshal’s office also shares its data with the Tyler Police Department, which has used it to track down stolen cars.

In Waco, the initial system will be paid for with funds seized in drug cases.

The council approved the purchase unanimously but only after Councilwoman Toni Herbert raised concerns about how the data would be used and how long it would be stored.

Holt said state law restricts the use of such data for uses related to fighting crime. He said state guidelines govern how long such records could be kept, but given the department’s limited server space, the data probably would be erased within days or weeks.

Meanwhile, the city is preparing to install a pole-mounted camera system that would catch red-light runners and send them fines.

Holt said police are prohibited by state law from using that data for other purposes, such as running warrants.

jbsmith@wacotrib.com

757-5752

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