Without adding any more officers to the force, the Cobleskill Village Police are soon likely to have far more time on patrols.
That’s because new in-car computers will reduce paperwork drastically for officers, freeing them for patrolling the village.
Cobleskill received a state grant this fall to equip all cars with TraCS––Traffic and Criminal Software––that will allow officers to make reports and issue tickets right in their patrol cars, without returning to the station.
And besides the TraCS system, which will be in all four cars, the Cobleskill PD has a mobile plate hunter that can track passing license plates on parked and moving cars.
“The goal is to be able to do incident reports right in the car,” Chief Mike O’Brien said of the TraCS system.
“We used to be tied up with reports for hours at the station. Everything we do requires a piece of paper. Now we can full input all the data right in the car. It will allow a lot more patrol time.”
The computers are mounted in front of the dashboard next to the driver. After an incident, an officer uses the keyboard and a stylus to record data.
“Accident reports, traffic tickets, incident reports, statements, appearance tickets––anything we do we’ll be able to do on the computer,” said Officer Jeff Brown, who’s in charge of the department’s computers.
A small printer between the two front seats can print traffic tickets, appearance tickets and more.
Instead of spending 15 minutes filling out a simple speeding ticket, Officer Brown said, “we scan the license, scan the registration, and 15 minutes is down to five minutes.”
The TraCS system can do the same for more complicated incidents, such as accidents. Another feature prints out information drivers need to exchange for insurance coverage.
“It reduces paperwork and it allows us to stay out in the field,” Officer Brown said.
An added benefit, he said, is that TraCS will identify fake IDs immediately.
He and Sergeant Larry Travis will be training the rest of the force, though Officer Brown said most of the work is more “familiarization than training.”
The mobile plate hunter is mounted on one car and hooked to the TraCS computer. Two cameras are on the roof, one angled to record plates on parked cars, the other towards oncoming traffic.
The plate hunter photographs each plate it passes––up to 60 miles per hour––though it misses some if the plate is higher or lower than the camera’s angle.
The plate hunter stores the plate numbers, and the computer matches them against those police maybe looking for.
“It’s a high-incident device,” Chief O’Brien said. “If the plate reader records a hit, it’s a real offense.”
Although Cobleskill officers have used the plate hunter for only about a month, it’s already identified and helped recover two stolen cars.
“Tying all this technology together inside cars is pretty amazing,” Officer Brown said. “We’ve come a long way.”