The Application of Advanced Technology to the Tasks Performed By Traffic Officers

THE MOBILE OFFICER’S ASSISTANT

The Mobile Officer’s Assistant (MOA) is a hand-held computer that gives law enforcement officers the ability to quickly check license plates for registration violations and stolen vehicles, and drivers’ licenses for outstanding warrants. MOA captures data from the magnetic stripes and bar codes on drivers’ licenses and uses the information to automatically create a traffic citation. A paper copy of the ticket is printed wirelessly for the motorist and then MOA transmits a digital version of the record to agency headquarters for timely processing.

Benefits of MOA:
⊕ Contributes to officer safety by identifying that a vehicle is stolen before an officer approaches the driver;
⊕ Contributes to the apprehension of wanted suspects and the recovery of stolen vehicles by wirelessly checking remote data bases;
⊕ Reduces the time required by an officer to issue a traffic citation (more important, increases the time available for patrol);
⊕ Uses handwriting recognition and automatic data capture to help officers maintain their situational awareness;
⊕ Eliminates the need for records departments and courts to hand-enter citation data;
⊕ Collects/stores racial profiling audit data, if needed; and,
⊕ Speeds the processing of citations. Additional benefits are likely.

The Mobile Officer's Assistant was developed by Anacapa Sciences, Inc., and Toomay Technologies under contract to the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). MOA has been designed to increase the safety and effectiveness of law enforcement officers through the application of advanced technology, guided by human factors design principles. MOA also deliv-ers the many cost-saving advantages of automation.

Anacapa Sciences worked with officers of the San Francisco Police Department’s Traffic Division to develop and test the original MOA system.1 Custom versions of MOA have been developed for the Snohomish County, Washington, Sheriff's Office, the Austin and Plano, Texas, Police Departments, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department; LVMPD officers have issued more than 1,000,000 MOA citations. Many other agencies have requested proposals and placed MOA at the top of their “wish list.” Anacapa Sciences is well-known to law enforcement throughout the U.S. and abroad for our traffic safety research and training programs in DWI detection and criminal intelligence analysis.

MOBILE OFFICER’S ASSISTANT FACT SHEET

Traffic enforcement stops result in large numbers of arrests, especially when officers check remote data bases for outstanding warrants. In a recent study, 37% of all arrests made by a police department were made as a consequence of traffic enforcement stops. Most traffic enforcement stops are made by motorcycle officers, but motorcycles are not equipped with computers that permit officers to make the queries themselves. In many law enforcement agencies, busy radio channels result in 10 to 20 minute delays in receiving a response from a dispatcher to a license plate or driver’s license query. For this reason, checks for wants and warrants are made in only a small proportion of enforcement stops. The Mobile Officer’s Assistant corrects this problem by pro-viding officers with unhindered access to remote databases.

The Mobile Officer’s Assistant can use any conventional WAN radio to make wireless queries of DMV, Department of Justice, and local data bases for stolen vehicles, warrants for arrest, registration status, and to transmit electronic citations to police headquarters. All data packets are doubly-encrypted to ensure secure communications. (Batch-downloading of citations also is available.)

Paper copies of traffic citations are printed on small, battery-powered printers that can be carried in motorcycle saddlebags or on the seat of a patrol car. Citations are transmitted wirelessly to the MOA Server at agency headquarters for transfer to the courts. Court managers are enthusiastic about MOA because all MOA citations are uniformly legible and the courts no longer must hand-enter citation data. An MOA system usually pays for itself within the first year of operation through reduced costs and increased efficiency. A feature that distinguishes MOA from all similar systems is that it can be used independently of a patrol vehicle, for example by motorcycle, bicycle, foot, or even mounted patrols.

The Mobile Officer’s Assistant can be used with any device running the PocketPC operating system. MOA automatically compresses and encrypts all transmissions; responses to officers’ queries are received in a matter of seconds. Further, MOA stores a state’s entire vehicle code for reference and facili-tates citing multiple violations; MOA even calculates the fine amounts for each violation, based on contin-gent variables, such as mph over the speed limit and whether the violation occurred in a construction zone or involved a collision. MOA also collects data for profiling audits, if necessary. A version of MOA, called the Special Agent’s Assistant (SAA), also is available. Designed for detectives and federal law enforcement personnel, the Special Agent’s Assistant provides a field contact report instead of a traffic citation; all of MOA’s wireless query capabilities are retained in the SAA. MOA and SAA were developed under a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract with the US Department of Transportation. Any government agency that subscribes to Federal Procurement Practices can purchase SBIR-developed systems without having to endure the lengthy RFP and competitive bid process. The NHTSA SBIR administrator will assist your agency to receive this benefit.

Dr. Jack Stuster Anacapa Sciences, Inc. PO Box 519 Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Tel: 805-966-6157 ext. 21 Fax: 805-966-7713 E-mail: jstuster@anacapasciences.com Website: www.anacapasciences.com

View and/or obtain an MOA brochure (1.6 MB)

Send an email to Project Director Jack Stuster