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November 29, 2007

ALPR in Pttsburgh

From City's roving cameras rapidly scan license plates - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Some interesting nuggets on the integration of license plate recognition with other systems:

Pittsburgh bought the license plate scanning technology with $25,000 from the Pennsylvania Auto Theft Prevention Authority, an organization established by the Legislature in 1994 and funded by auto insurance companies. In two years of its use, police have recovered 180 stolen cars.
. . .
The system is used by Pennsylvania State Police, and license plate scanners are mounted at toll booths along the Pennsylvania Turnpike to watch for stolen and wanted vehicles and those who avoid paying tolls, officials said. The Pittsburgh Parking Authority uses a similar scanner to look for vehicles whose owners have outstanding parking violations, officials said.
Harper has visited other U.S. cities that combine the license-plate technology with surveillance cameras mounted throughout neighborhoods and hopes Pittsburgh can do the same. The technology allows police to enter specific query information into the database.
"If we have a bank robbery or other crime Downtown and we have these cameras with this technology mounted on bridges that connect to Downtown, we can enter the suspect vehicle information and the cameras will alert us if they scan a license plate that leads to the same car or make and model of a car that we're looking for," Harper said.

Posted by rshah at November 29, 2007 08:09 AM

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