PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA’s police department is replacing its already-aging drone fleet. The SEPTA Board is expected to approve the purchase on Thursday.
Over the last decade, drones have become an essential part of how SEPTA’s Special Operations Unit gathers real-time intelligence and investigates crimes on the system.
“You get a call for a person with a gun or something like that, we can dispatch a drone that can go over there and get that view of what’s going on,” said Deputy SEPTA Police Chief James Zuggi.
However, he said batteries on the department’s six drones are starting to fail, and it’s getting harder to repair the older units. So, SEPTA is using a federal grant to spend $259,000 on five new drones from Axon Technologies.
“This new generation of drones — it’s just as technology improves, we’re getting into things that are more interoperable with some of the systems we have now,” Zuggi explained.
The department is also exploring expanding drone use beyond just the Special Operations Unit.
