IMAGE: London Mayor Boris Johnson, left, and New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, right, hold a news conference at the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015. Photo Credit: Charles Eckert

London Mayor Boris Johnson praised New York City’s vast network of security cameras during a tour Wednesday of several NYPD crime-fighting efforts and said he wants to use the surveillance system as a guide to fight crime and terrorism in his city.

"We just had an extraordinary presentation on data collection of surveillance cameras and we are looking at New York as a leader in making that data work for us," Johnson said at a news conference with Police Commissioner William Bratton at the NYPD’s Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, part of the department’s counter-terrorism bureau.

The tour also gave Johnson a look at the city’s radiation detectors, under the guidance of Bratton, who also announced a pilot program of Smart Cars for use in parking enforcement.

Johnson toured the initiative’s offices, which house a surveillance unit integrating thousands of closed-circuit and surveillance cameras with a central monitoring facility.

Johnson said the NYPD’s network of 8,000 cameras collecting and processing information "in real time" is something he’d like to bring home.

"The speed in which the cameras in New York can detect suspicious bags and people is impressive," Johnson said.

The data-collection system could help London "track down people we have under surveillance, which requires a lot of shoe leather," he said