Turning up the HEAT on car thieves with cloud traffic technology
ATS InstAlert™ signs help extend the Virginia State Police’s Help Eliminate Auto Theft (HEAT) program to combat motor vehicle theft throughout the Commonwealth.
Traffic safety and cloud technology leader All Traffic Solutions (ATS) is helping to take HEAT, a long-standing statewide vehicle theft prevention program in Virginia, to another level.
The Virginia State Police has just acquired four ATS InstAlert cloud-enabled message trailers. These will be supported by ATS’ TraffiCloud® remote management software. Together, the signs and TraffiCloud will support public safety messages and, in particular, promote more widely how citizens can Help Eliminate Auto Theft and protect their ride.
The HEAT program educates citizens about theft of vehicles and vehicle parts — crimes that cost Virginians millions of dollars a year. Citizens can report crimes anonymously and be rewarded if their information leads to the arrest of persons involved in auto theft, the theft of auto parts, chop-shop activity and/or carjacking. HEAT also trains and supports local and state law enforcement officers to prevent auto theft. Since its inception in1992, the program has helped reduce auto theft by 48%.
HEAT is a cooperative effort of the state police and Virginia’s law enforcement community. Through HEAT, law enforcement agencies in Virginia will be able to request the use of one of the four InstAlert message trailers in a layered approach to auto-theft prevention. The message signs will display prevention messages, such as ‘9pm Routine: Lock Your Doors, and Take Your Keys or Take Your Chances’.
The InstAlert message trailers features include high mobility and ease of deployment, together with TraffiCloud’s remote management capabilities.
Pairing InstAlert with TraffiCloud offers many benefits in terms of adaptability, cost-efficiency and operational effectiveness, according to ATS CEO Andy Souders.
“Accurate real-time information can have a transformative influence on crime prevention and public safety. Being able to transplant that capability from place to place means that the policing effort can be targeted where it’s most needed.
“Remote management also saves time and is a far safer solution because officials don’t have to visit each sign every time a message needs to be changed. Using TraffiCloud’s Message Suite software, the HEAT program will be able to monitor each trailer in real time and ensure that the right messages about auto theft control prevention are provided to the public,” he says.
For more information on Virginia’s HEAT program, visit www.HEATreward.com.
