IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Houston to Automate Traffic Citations

A new system will allow officers to prepare tickets on a wireless, handheld computer.

HOUSTON - Hand-scrawled traffic citations soon will be a thing of the past in Houston. The city's police department is installing a wireless citation application that will allow officers to automatically prepare traffic tickets on handheld computing devices.

The new system, which creates a clearly printed citation in seconds, is the result of more than two years of work, according to Donald Hollingsworth, Houston's Director of Public Safety.

"We began with a search to find a dramatically new way to increase the city's productivity," he said. "What we achieved was a system that has the potential to change the way every city in the United States handles its citation process."

Houston is the first city to use Motorola's Premier Handheld wireless citation solution. The technology allows field officers to enter required citation data, collect officer notes, electronically capture officer and offender signatures, and print the citation. Default and routine fields eliminate the need for officers to enter boilerplate information. And electronic citation records can be automatically loaded into back-end databases such as records management and courts systems, according to Motorola.

Mayor Lee P. Brown called the technology an example of Houston's legacy of providing public-safety personnel with advanced tools. "This new citation system demonstrates how technology has enabled the city to share information across government functions and streamline a process that's critical to the operation of the city," he said.

Judge Berta Mejia, presiding judge of the Houston Municipal Court, added that the system should deliver better outcomes in the courtroom.

"The results achieved in court are often a direct result of the accuracy of the information that first enters the system," Mejia said. "This new system reduced the number of times any data must be handled by an individual, and we believe this will help us maintain the integrity of the data."