When Senior Constable Aaron Cherry climbs on board his police motorcycle to start his shift on Canberra's roads, he barely takes a moment to consider he is riding what could be colloquially be considered a unicorn.
As complex as his BMW GS1250 "police special" motorcycle already is, there are a number of things - three, in fact - which make it unique across every police jurisdiction in the country.
Sprouting from the front corners of the bike, just above the traditional police red and blue flashing lights, are two automated number plate recognition (ANPR) scanners, together with one "looking" behind.
It's a highly complex, one-of-of-kind mobile system for this motorcycle, wirelessly and automatically updated with new information as the officer rides along, building a fresh dataset of potential offenders while on the move, and capable of scanning six plates per second.
The triple-ANPR for a motorcycle, controlled via an iPad-sized touch screen device sitting across the handlebars, was developed by the Australian Federal Police technicians at Belconnen, inside their Aladdin's cave of technical wizardry.
No other police jurisdictions have attempted it because of its complexity and even Senior Constable Cherry said having "so much going on at once" could make the alert system overwhelming when on the move, on top of visually scanning the traffic flow, listening to the police radio feed in his headset, radar-watching for speeding drivers and manhandling the big bike in and around other road users.
With car theft in Canberra re-emerging as an issue over the past six to 12 months and almost 1400 cars stolen in the 12 months to April 30, ANPR was regarded as one of the key weapons police could use against stolen motor vehicles, and stolen number plates.
While accidentally forgetting to register your car can join your plate to the database (and with it, all your personal data held by the ACT Motor Registry), this offence is of less concern to police than the stolen car issue, as years of gathering criminal intelligence has revealed vehicle and number plate theft was usually a precursor to other crimes such as burglary, robbery, theft and petrol drive-offs.
In 2003, the ACT was the first police jurisdiction in the country to use number plate recognition.
Police embraced the concept so vigorously it was funded by the ACT government to have a dedicated team of purple RAPID (Recognition and Analysis of Plates IDentified) cars patrolling Canberra's roads. Those systems were so large and bulky - with the scanners the size of a Dolphin torch - they couldn't fit on a motorcycle.
Now the scanners are half the size of a shoebox, and shrinking with every new generation.
"The [ANPR] system is always scanning, always operating, while I'm riding the bike through traffic but to operate it at its optimum, I find it's best to find a good location, stop and give it my full attention," Senior Constable Cherry said.
"It's a fantastic capability."
Road Policing, or Traffic Operations as it was previously known, is one of the most coveted roles in the force and riding a powerful police motorcycle, clad in leathers and with all the best technical kit at your fingertips, is right at the top of the "cool police jobs" list.
"When I'm asked what I do in the police, there's a different reaction when I tell them I ride a police motorcycle every day; people are genuinely interested," Senior Constable Cherry said.
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