Ewing, New Jersey sits in between New York and Philadelphia, with a population nearing 35,000 of ethnically and socially diverse neighborhoods in a community whose government is investing in ensuring its economy thrives and its citizens are safe.
The Township recently announced it has rolled out a 21st Century platform for equipping its law enforcement professionals with vital in-vehicle communications, enabling officers in the field to access real time applications including information needed to protect the community.
Working with Cradlepoint, the Police Department created a secure end-to-end private network in the cloud over wired and wireless broadband Internet. This single, unified network supports fleet management, with information available to dispatchers about where patrol cars are in real time. Over-the-air updates will make management of the applications in each vehicle much easier, and redundancy between cellular networks as well as fixed broadband and Wi-Fi brings availability to a new high, which is naturally critical especially in emergency situations.
“We are exceedingly happy with the Cradlepoint Technology,” said Robert Green, Director of Technology, Ewing Police Department, in a news release. “It works seamlessly and Cradlepoint showed us that we could manage everything remotely. The officers don’t have to do anything to get it to work. It is always there and always on.”
Time savings was an important part of Ewing Township's decision to move to a unified secure cloud approach. Instead of officers having to come in to headquarters for maintenance and updates, networking and applications can be managed centrally.
“More and more police departments, like Ewing, are realizing the benefits that cloud-based, software-defined LTE technology provides when it comes to secure and reliable in-vehicle networking,” said Ian Pennell, CMO, Cradlepoint.
While there are no estimates on the growth of connected police cars, more funding is being made available for programs that enhance police officer performance and improve the justice system including the MORE program sponsored by the US Department of Justice. With local governments' budgets under pressure, moving to a more digital networking approach to keeping the force connected (compared to traditional radio systems) requires making a business case for saving money and time.
So, beyond the natural upside of ensuring safer communities overall, being able to reduce costs while setting the stage for adding future applications may be what it takes for more communities to follow in Ewing Township's footsteps.