The Bowling Green Police Department’s fleet of vehicles is getting a high-tech boost.

Patrol officers are being equipped with mobile data computers.

Funded predominantly by grants from the federal Homeland Security Department, the computers cost about $9,000 per car, and will have the effect of improving the efficiency with which officers are able to file incident reports and interact with other law enforcement agencies, BGPD Chief Doug Hawkins said.

About 50 computers have been installed so far in police cruisers, with additional units to be delivered in the next several weeks to complement nearly the entire fleet.

The Panasonic Toughbook laptop computers are kept in a port on the officer’s right, with a stylus and touch-screen capabilities.

Programs on the computers include software that enables officers on patrol to check license plates for possible registration violations before initiating a traffic stop.

The computers also feature an electronic scanner used on driver’s licenses that can determine whether the person has any outstanding warrants in the National Crime Information Center’s database.

Officers are able to type incident reports on these computers while in their patrol cars, and when they arrive at BGPD headquarters they can hook the computers up to a printer that will print out the reports, saving time that would have been used in the past to fill out paperwork.

Hawkins said that officers wanting to check the registration status of vehicles in the past had to call a local dispatcher, but the computers have eliminated that step.

“By allowing officers to run license plate numbers, it frees up a lot of radio traffic,” Hawkins said. “You will see the radios being used more for emergency traffic rather than day-to-day traffic you see.”

Officer Melissa Bailey was trained on how to use the computers during her time in the police academy.

One of the programs she can use is called E-Crash, which allows her to re-create traffic accident scenes.

Using a stylus, Bailey can pull up a street intersection and place illustrations of wrecked vehicles, pedestrians or animals on the screen and add other features at the accident site such as traffic signals, signs or trees, creating a re-enactment of the scene of an accident that she can file with her report.

“I can get to an accident, get all my information there, enter it in the computer and have all the information when I get back to the office,” Bailey said.

As she talks, the computer alerts her to the location of another BGPD officer who just made a traffic stop, identifying the officer’s name and location, another feature of the computer system that Bailey said will enhance efficiency.

Hawkins said the computer system gives officers text-messaging capability to interact with people in other law enforcement agencies, something that would be handy for large-scale emergency situations.

With the city completing the installation of its wireless Internet system over the course of this year, Hawkins said that will enable officers to access the city computer system to read e-mail and produce work documents, saving additional trips to the police station.