Law-enforcement technologyNew Jersey towns warm up to electronic traffic ticketing

Published 3 November 2010

Officers will be able electronically to issue summonses and tickets for moving and nonmoving violations in a fraction of the time it takes to write them by hand; the efficiency should free officers to do more police work — a benefit as departments deal with reduced manpower, said officers and advocates of the technology

Technology allows tickets to be written faster // Source: ejournalism.ca

Gloucester City, New Jersey, police went live Friday with an electronic traffic ticketing system that is supposed to let officers issue tickets more efficiently. Matawan, in Monmouth County, got on board with the electronic system the same day, and Ocean City is scheduled to start Monday.

Officers will be able electronically to issue summonses and tickets for moving and nonmoving violations in a fraction of the time it takes to write them by hand, supporters of the technology say. The efficiency should free officers to do more police work — a benefit as departments deal with reduced manpower, said officers and advocates of the technology.

Technology like this is a no-brainer. It makes us more efficient. It also enhances officer safety,” said Gloucester City Chief George Berglund, who secured $21,000 in federal stimulus money to pay for the system.

The Inquirer’s Darran Simon writes that Gloucester City signed a five-year contract with Info-Cop, an East Rutherford law-enforcement software-technology company, with the cost dependent on how many tickets are written. The 28-member Camden County department had the electronic ticketing system installed in ten vehicles and is awaiting a handheld device.

Officers say electronic ticketing reduces errors that police or court officers can make jotting down information.

There is less of a chance for tickets to be dismissed because of a mistake on a ticket,” said Sgt. Jim Peslis of the Hanover Township Police Department in Morris County, which contracted with Advanced Public Safety, a Florida company, to install its system.

Info-Cop and Advanced Public Safety are the vendors approved by the state Administrative Office of the Courts to contract with local police to develop their systems, said office spokeswoman Winnie Comfort.

Simon writes that squad-car laptops are equipped with Info-Cop e-ticketing software. Officers swipe a driver’s license in a small scanner. Criminal and driving histories, obtained from different databases, are then displayed on the laptop and automatically entered into the software.

Officers then choose the offense from a menu and input their location. Squad cars are equipped with a printer, and tickets are printed in the car. Tickets and summonses are automatically uploaded to the Administrative Office of the Courts.

For a parking violation, officers would enter the license-plate number, make, and model, along with the offense and location.

It took an officer about forty seconds to issue a parking ticket for a car facing the wrong way in Gloucester City on Friday.

This is not a tool that agencies use to issue more tickets,” said Michael Sweer, a regional sales manager with Advanced. “It’s a tool designed to give the officer back more patrol time.”

Law enforcement agencies in New York and other states have used electronic ticketing for several years. Comfort said New Jersey state police started using it in late 2009, in the initial test run for the technology.

Gloucester City, where about 12,500 tickets a year are written, will pay about forty-one cents apiece for that number, said Berglund. He said the department would pay 26 cents per ticket thereafter.

Berglund said the $21,000 in federal stimulus money probably would last for about three years, based on the average number of tickets written in the past.

Since 2009, Info-Cop has contracted with about thirty-five New Jersey police agencies, about two-thirds of which have fully implemented the system, said Allan A. Witten, vice president of sales. On average, two of the police agencies under contract with Info-Cop are coming online each week, Witten said.

The Lyndhurst Township Police Department in Bergen County was the first local force in the state to use Info-Cop’s electronic ticketing software, Witten said.

Westampton in Burlington County, Pleasantville, and Linwood in Atlantic County, and Wildwood in Cape May County also use Info-Cop’s system, Witten said.