The Milledgeville (Ga.) Police Department has implemented a pay-per-ticket electronic citations system with license plate recognition technology provided by Gtechna, the company announced.

High personnel costs coupled with a paper trail that created an administrative backlog and steep operational overhead made traffic enforcement an expensive and not always effective undertaking for the agency that polices a city of 17,715.

As a result, Gtechna and the Milledgeville PD developed a pay per ticket model that allowed the police department to adopt an eCitations system at no upfront cost, according to the company. Two patrol vehicles were outfitted with LPR cameras, a force multiplier that flags motorists with violations such as suspended or expired licenses and expired tags (unpaid insurance).

"As soon as the system was up and running, within only two hours we were able to recover $9,100 from scofflaw violations like unpaid registration," said Milledgeville Police Chief Dray Swicord. "It was clear from the outset that pay-per-ticket was a low risk, highly beneficial solution."

Gtechna's eCitations enforcement software runs on an in-vehicle laptop or tablet and issues electronic citations to a four-inch Bluetooth Zebra printer for traffic enforcement. Gtechna also provided one handheld PDA for parking enforcement. Officers fill out electronic citations at least three times faster and all electronic-citation data is sent wirelessly to the courts with no need for transcription, according to the company.