Tennessee police department to utilize Rekor’s ‘plug-and-play’ vehicle recognition system and powerful Watchman software for license plate reads with up to 99% accuracy
Rekor Systems, Inc., focused on bringing smarter, faster, cost-competitive solutions to the worlds of public safety and customer experience, has been selected by the City of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee (the City) and the Mt. Juliet Police Department (MJPD) to provide robust vehicle recognition solutions. The City and MJPD selected Rekor to roll out the community’s automated license plate recognition (ALPR) program which the department is terming, ‘Guardian Shield.’ The Guardian Shield program was initiated to enhance the community’s safety by providing an additional tool to further protect and shield residents and visitors from criminals who enter the City to cause harm.
Before selecting Rekor, MJPD and IT professionals conducted rigorous testing and an extensive review of Rekor and other leading license plate recognition systems. After testing was completed, the Rekor solutions clearly outperformed competitors. An alert generated from Rekor led to the successful apprehension of an armed and dangerous fugitive from a nearby county. Thirty-seven locations for fixed cameras have been identified that will provide the best possible coverage to protect the entire Mt. Juliet community. $89,000 has been budgeted per year and Rekor Systems will support the cameras pending successful final approvals.
“Our number one priority is maintaining the safety of our community, and we are always looking for robust tools and technologies that can help us to do so. Rekor’s Edge and Watchman vehicle recognition technology provided better results than its competition during our trial period. Importantly, it proved its value immediately during testing by helping us to catch a wanted fugitive and take a dangerous man off the streets,” said James Hambrick, Chief, MJPD, “With higher accuracy than other providers, as well as the ability to affordably scale, Rekor’s solutions fit the needs of our department both now and for the future. We look forward to working with Rekor to make Mt. Juliet and the surrounding communities a safer place.”
As a part of its subscription, and at no additional cost, the MJPD will have the choice of sharing data with the Rekor Public Safety Network (RPSN). Any state or local law enforcement agency participating in the RPSN will be able to access real time data from any part of the network at no cost. The Company is initially launching the network by aggregating vehicle data from customers in over 30 states. With thousands of automatic license plate reading cameras currently in service that capture approximately 30 million plate reads per week, the network is expected to be live in the first quarter of 2020.
“We are proud to partner with MJPD and to win a significant law enforcement contract through a vigorous bid competition. The selection of Rekor’s Edge and Watchman technologies – as well as the capture of a wanted suspect due to an alert from our system in testing – further validates our vehicle recognition systems as the preferred market solutions,” said Robert A. Berman, President and CEO, Rekor, “Our unparalleled vehicle recognition accuracy and scalability, combined with our cost-effective systems, enable law enforcement agencies of all sizes the ability to implement robust technologies that can positively impact the public safety of their communities. We are gratified to add another law enforcement agency to our Rekor Public Safety Network, and to continue our work in public safety across the country.”
Rekor’s software and cameras can be deployed to support law enforcement without long installation delays. Rekor’s solution can be used to collect license plate data and information such as the make, type, and color of a vehicle. This can represent substantial savings compared to traditional optical character recognition license plate reading technology.
