The University of Alabama’s research on issuing traffic citations electronically has been awarded a $500,000 federal grant to expand the testing into four more counties, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported. The grant is sponsored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in partnership with the Alabama Department of Public Safety and the Administrative Office of the Courts. The CARE Research & Development Laboratory at the university developed e-citation in 2003. An electronic citation application and ticketing process, it allows police to send tickets electronically to the Administrative Office of the Courts. In the first phase of the project, troopers use scanners to read a driver’s license. The data from the license is immediately put into the e-citation system. The remainder of the form can be completed using drop down boxes. Troopers then print a hard copy of the ticket to give to the driver.