Intelligent Police Car that brought police into the 21st century

Hearing the words “Intelligent Police Car” may refer to somebody as a future concept for police vehicles. For us it just means to bring the police into the 21st century. The technology nowadays is already pretty advanced. Information is being spread faster than ever before and the access to it is easier than getting a beer in a foreign country. Citizens are very educated about their rights and proving their traffic or other minor law violations may get very complicated. Our lives move in a fast pace and we expect to be served everywhere faster than formula 1 pit stop.

The Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic accepted the challenges of current world and decided to give the police appropriate tools. In 2012 they started a project which not only equipped the police cars with state of the art technology, but also solved the infrastructure and databases issues they were facing.
From a total number of approximately 3000 police cars in Slovakia, 2 380 were equipped with a GPS location tracker and 780 with a specialized computer system enabling:

• Automatic Number Plate Recognition
• Video recording
• Monitoring of vehicle’s location and other car related information
• Messaging with the Command Centre
• Integration with the CAD (computer aided dispatch) system
• Daily duties planning
• Automated ID cards reading and direct accessing various Police databases

All these functionalities were integrated into one, yet easy to use system.
The first 30 pilot cars were running in Slovakia already in 2013 and the project was fully rolled out and finished in 2014. Since then, following accomplishments were achieved:

• The significant increase of clarified cases of stolen vehicles. In the years 2008 till 2013, the average rate has been at 22%. In the year 2015, when the project was fully operational, the rate has risen to 30%.
• Increase of efficiencies during regular control. Police officers are obliged to verify every person the control against various police databases. Usually they take the person’s ID and using the radio they call the dispatcher who makes the check. Using the new system, they make the check directly and without silly errors. They are saving their time, but also the time of the dispatcher and the citizen. According to police, they are 50% to 80% more efficient than before.
• Video evidence material. Officers have access to all video recordings which is used as evidence for the offenses directly on the place. Moreover, it has been many times on court for citizen disputes. Video recording also increases the safety of the mobile unit and acts as a corruption prevention tool
• Simplification of the routine processes during a duty. Having all necessary information directly and quickly helps the police to save time.

The public may experience the following benefits:

• Faster police action
• Increased efficiency in finding stole vehicles
• Acceleration of the routine document check process
• Increase of the safety and continuity of traffic

The major difference of this project compared to some similar projects in other countries lies in the complexity. Together with the Ministry of Interior of Slovak republic we managed to combine broad range of functionalities into one system. That made this project unique and helped to gain a lot of experience and know-how for our future product developments.