Wireless World: Cops Write WiFi Tickets
A parking cop approaches a BMW 318i at a meter that expired just five minutes ago. She takes a handheld computer, connected to a wireless-fidelity network, and scans the bar code on the car's registration sticker. The ownership information is captured instantly and the cop sends transmits an electronic version of the form to a mobile printer attached to her belt, also via the WiFi connection.
The officer leaves the summons under the car's windshield wiper, like cops usually do, then downloads the collected data later, when she is back at the station, on the city's computer network, which starts the clock ticking for the car's owner to return the summons within the allowed time.
The scene is being repeated at major cities around the country, including New York, where police are reducing errors in the tickets they write and increasing the amount that they collect in fines, through wireless computer networks.
"The movement for WiFi is getting stronger," Roger Herman, a business futurist, told United Press International. "Governments are going to rely on it to completely change the way they do business."
Last year, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a former technology entrepreneur, noted publicly that old-fashioned ticket-writing procedures were no longer acceptable, because they quite often resulted in the wrong driver being accused, thereby leaving fines due the city uncollected.
"Many cities have experienced problems with the collection of tickets that were issued," Brian Lehmann, senior director of global government solutions at Symbol Technologies Inc., a handheld computer maker in the New York suburbs, told UPI. "There were all sorts of errors, including the inability to recognize handwriting. When the handwriting was recognized, other errors happened, like keystroke errors, when the clerks entered the ticket information into the computer."
So last fall, the city debuted a pilot project, in the borough of Queens, outfitting 1,500 cops with WiFi-enabled mobile devices, like the one in the scenario outlined above. Since then, ticket-writing errors have been reduced dramatically in the pilot area―to just 1 percent of tickets issued, from 39 percent before the new system was tested, Lehmann said.
"They're not actually issuing more tickets, but they are collecting on more tickets that were issued," he said. "The outcome is increased revenue for the city―$40 million in new money for the NYPD."
By GENE J. KOPROWSKI, United Press International
Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
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