By Matt Hamblen and Patrick Thibodeau
ComputerWorld
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — An increasing number of U.S. cities are putting mobile and wireless technologies on the street — literally — in order to help deter criminals and identify tax and parking ticket scofflaws.
In an increasing number of U.S. cities, ramping up crime-fighting efforts is no longer just a case of putting more feet on the street. They’re also putting mobile and wireless technologies on the street - literally — in order to help deter criminals and identify scofflaws.
For example, the local government in West Palm Beach, Fla., said last week that it has installed a wireless video surveillance network to give its police department a digital eye on city neighborhoods.
In the initial rollout, which was done in January, 13 video cameras connected to 17 wireless mesh nodes were trained on some of the city’s most crime-ridden areas, enabling police to electronically look for gang activity, drug dealing, prostitution and other crimes.
The mesh nodes connect to police headquarters and provide dispatchers with real-time video streams, according to network vendor Firetide Inc. In addition, each node is coupled with a Wi-Fi access point that enables police officers patrolling the streets to access the video feeds via laptops mounted in their cruisers.
Lois Frankel, West Palm Beach’s mayor, said she isn’t worried that the wireless surveillance network will generate bad publicity for the city, which openly acknowledges that it has a crime problem. “We have only gotten positive feedback, and people like having the cameras,” she said.
In fact, the city, which has a population of about 100,000, is launching a program dubbed City-Cam that is aimed at increasing the number of cameras in the network through partnerships with businesses and homeowners’ associations. With police training and supervision, civilian volunteers will monitor the video feeds and notify dispatchers of any incidents they spot.
Reaching out to the public is a financial necessity, Frankel said, because the city can’t afford to buy all of the cameras it needs.
Police departments elsewhere also are having to make do with whatever resources cash-strapped municipal governments can spare.
For example, Framingham, Mass., which has about 67,000 residents, is deploying a townwide Wi-Fi mesh network so its laptop-equipped patrol cars can be online at all times. But for now, police officers have to drive to public Wi-Fi hot spots to transmit reports via a virtual private network.
Drive-by scanning systems are another technology that more local governments are starting to rely on. The car-mounted systems can be used to find stolen vehicles and identify autos that have exceeded parking time limits or belong to people who haven’t paid taxes or parking tickets.
To monitor parking spaces that have specified time limits, Fredericksburg, Va., is using a system developed by Tannery Creek Systems Inc. that can check two cars per second via cameras that scan their license plates and their shapes. A GPS device digitally marks the location of a car, and the system checks the next time it goes by to see if the driver has overstayed his welcome.
The District of Columbia’s Department of Transportation, or DDOT, began using technology from Elsag North America two years ago to search for parking-ticket scofflaws. That system uses infrared cameras to scan license plates, which are checked against a database stored on a laptop PC.
Mike Belak, the DDOT’s CIO, said officials are exploring the idea of adding real-time wireless communications capabilities to the camera-equipped vehicles.
Separately, Belak is testing parking enforcement systems from three vendors. The DDOT hopes to use one of the systems to increase the productivity of its enforcement officers, he said.
But technology is no panacea. In West Palm Beach, Frankel said, the wireless surveillance network is only one part of a wider crime-fighting initiative that also includes hiring more police officers. “The cameras are just a tool,” she said, “not a replacement for anything.”