Genetec Inc. announced that the city of New Orleans’ Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) has deployed Genetec AutoVu Cloudrunner to extend the capabilities of its automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) program. The vehicle-centric investigative system helps them gather evidence in the historic French Quarter with solar-powered ALPR technology that captures high-quality images day or night.

The New Orleans RTCC uses the video management system Omnicast to manage more than 1,000 cameras deployed throughout the city as well as 150 ALPR cameras and 16 AutoVu Cloudrunner cameras, with another 22 to be deployed.

“The historic nature of the French Quarter made implementing technologies challenging,” said New Orleans RTCC Director Ross Bourgeois. “Today, we can gather additional license plate reads and query suspect vehicles that are entering and existing in the area. I think, more than changing our operation, these modern devices have really helped us enhance security in one of the oldest and most popular neighborhoods in the country.”

To aid in investigations involving multiple ALPR cameras, data collected can be stored in the cloud and immediately available for querying from any location connected to the system. Vehicle images are uploaded from the camera to the cloud via wireless connections over cellular networks. And with the RTCC managing all video and ALPR data within Security Center, law enforcement officers don’t have to switch between multiple systems when they're querying requests for video or vehicle data.