During the past two months, the City of Urbana and the City of Champaign have held a number of meetings wherein the use of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) have been discussed.  One issue that has been raised numerous times is the failure of normal security cameras to adequately capture vehicles at night.

ALPR seller Flock Safety has indicated that their camera technology, priced at $2,500 per year for each camera, is able to readily identify vehicles at night.  Flock also indicated that their cameras record vehicle color and other vehicle details that would be searchable by police officers. 

In support of ALPRs, Urbana Police Chief Bryant Seraphin has frequently described a hypothetical shooting involving a white vehicle in the early AM hours.  Seraphin argued that simply knowing the color of the perpetrator’s vehicle may be enough to enable police officers to locate the vehicle with Flock’s ALPR system.

Check CU asked the Village of Rantoul, where Flock Safety ALPRs were installed earlier this year, for three night time images from each of its ALPRs.  Attorney David Wesner provided the requested images by email. 

From the images provided, it is hard to believe that vehicle color or any vehicle details other than the shapes of brake lights and headlights could be discerned at night.  It is unclear if the Flock Safety system was able to effectively read any license plate numbers at night, since Rantoul redacted that information.

Though it would seem to be a critical metric, Flock Safety has not presented any data which demonstrates the accuracy rates of its license plate readers.

The images provided by David Wesner are shown below – clicking on any image will open the entire set of images in a PDF file.