New Cars, E-Ticketing Program for Galloway Police

In separate resolutions at its meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 22, Galloway Township Council awarded a bid for an electronic ticketing and approved two new cars for the .

The bid was awarded to PD Electronic Hardware and Software, which the council called the “sole responsible bidder.” The bid was awarded for a project designed to save the police department a significant amount of money in filing tickets, Police Chief Patrick Moran said.

While police officers will still have to pull over offending motorists and issue tickets in person, cars will be equipped with card swipe systems, so that officers need to just swipe a card to file a ticket while out on the road. The cost for the e-ticketing portion of the system is $43,000.

Twenty of the police cars—half the fleet—will be equipped with the card swipes, and as cars are replaced, the new vehicles will be equipped with the systems.

“For the amount of people we have, it will make things much easier for filing,” Moran said. “ … As we see the savings, we’ll add more vehicles. A study has shown a significant amount of savings in filing.”

The Egg Harbor Township Police Department recently began using the same system, Moran said, although it's too early to determine any results.

The department may get to add the system to cars soon, as the council also approved a contract to Charles S. Winner Inc. for two new police cars. The contract will be in the amount of $78,835.38.

“We’ve had no new cars since 2008,” said Moran, who said the force has had some cars since 2001. “One K-9 car is getting replaced.”

Moran said the department allows each officer to take home their own car in a program called the Lexington Program, which has allowed the department to hold on to cars for longer than they would if officers shared cars.

“Garage maintenance is also $100,000 cheaper,” Moran said. “We were able to keep officers because we didn’t have to buy new cars.”

Although officers aren’t permitted to drive the cars when they are not on duty, Moran said it does allow for more of a police presence throughout the township, and allows officers to be on scene in 10-15 minutes if they are called to report to an incident when they are off-duty.

Additionally at Tuesday night’s meeting, the council voted to amend the 2011 budget to include $52,477 awarded to the police department by the State Department of New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety in the form of a Safe and Secure Communities Grant.

Finally, the council awarded a bid to Tactical Public Safety for pagers for the fire department. The total amount of the bid is not to exceed $68,475, and will come in two rounds, this year and next year, to compensate for the fire department’s outdated pager system.