Barcelona City Council has invested 14.3 million euros to renew the fleet of 184 vehicles of the city’s Urban Police. A not inconsiderable figure that this Friday Mayor Jaume Collboni wanted to highlight, who accompanied those responsible for the municipal police at the fleet presentation ceremony. A presence that sought something more that the first mayor also verbalized, “to show the support of the mayor and the government team to the command team of the Urban Guard and to all the members of the city police.”
At the event, held at the Fira de Barcelona, ??the consignment of 90 new cars was presented that will replace the current ones along with the remaining 94 that will join the fleet next July. Hybrid vehicles that have been designed based on the contribution made by the patrol officers themselves, who are the ones who know first-hand the daily needs in a cabin in which they spend a good part of their working day, traveling the streets of the city. city.
The cars, Ford Kuga model, incorporate technological and safety advances to “improve the service provided to citizens,” said the head of the Urban Guard, Mayor Pedro Velázquez, placing special emphasis on patrolling in the remaining neighborhoods. outside the most media focus of day-to-day life.
One of the main novelties of the new patrol cars is the incorporation of a license plate reading system in fifteen of the vehicles. These patrols will be distributed one per district and have a system that updates daily a list of vehicle license plates pending to be located due to some circumstance. Additionally, and occasionally, you can enter the license plate of a car that is currently being searched for some reason by the police.
The cars have incorporated a computer with an on-board processor, connected to the database of the General Directorate of Traffic so that agents can quickly check the validity of driving licenses or license plates. A connection that also allows them to access any of the database with which the city police usually works. And it also connects them directly with the Barcelona coordination room, to access the incidents open or running at that moment in the city.
For Collboni, the investment means “increasing with more technical resources” the daily work carried out by the Urban Guard which, after the last increase in staff, now has 3,492 troops.
Barcelona City Council has also invested another 100,120 euros in providing the Urban Police with 24 electric bicycles, in addition to the 125 non-electric bicycles they already have. During the design of the new fleet, the possibility of acquiring electric scooters was raised, a means of transport that is increasingly used by criminals operating in districts such as Ciutat Vella or Eixample, but, for the moment, the option is ruled out due to insecurity. that it generates in the agents.
