Smart cars, smart cities, and advanced transportation system technology continue to transform various aspects of our daily lives. In the process, technology such as the automatic recognition of number plates (ANPR) is becoming regular in our daily lives. In addition, the concept of ANPR could be a part of a range of scenarios, all while eliminating the requirement for human involvement.
The system provides tagless entry for all cars in the parking area, however, it doesn’t assign the user a slot. A universal OCR algorithm is not readily available and is therefore difficult to develop. ANPR has many advantages that form the foundation for real-world applications. The majority of the advantages of ANPR cameras are related to the automation of manual tasks, high-efficiency space management, governance, and improving the customer experience.
Improving Efficiency And Reducing Costs
Automation:
The automatic recognition of numbers permits automated alerts and control for facilities. Therefore, ANPR is a crucial technology that can be used to create smart cities.
Analytics:
The information generated helps with traffic flow analysis and is crucial to operating smart transportation networks (ITS) in which the data processing technology helps increase the mobility of people and goods, improve demand management, improve security, cut down on traffic congestion, and control accidents effectively.
Identification:
The speedy recognition of a car numberplate is the foundation for the speedy and seamless identification of vehicles. The tag assists in granting access to vehicles or locating particular vehicles.
Efficiency:
The speedy and precise recognition of number plates doesn’t depend on input from humans. This is why it helps to ensure cost-effective management and decreases wait periods.
Convenience:
ANPR is typically connected to other IT systems and functions as an ecosystem that offers users a seamless and easy experience. Therefore, it enhances the user experience and provides new products and services, like automated parking payments.
Use Cases of ANPR
Automated recognition of number plates is vital for a broad variety of applications where the identification, detection, or localization of vehicles is vital. Find out more in our article about other applications for computer vision in the most innovative urban applications.
Law Enforcement.
Police forces utilize ANPR to enforce the law and for checking if vehicles are registered or identify vehicles involved in traffic violations. The detection and recognition of number plates in real time allow authorities to identify cars and track their position.
Parking Management For Cars.
Car parking management needs an integrated system to identify individual vehicles. Thus an automated number plate recognition is essential to effective parking management. ANPR permits garages to automatize parking management as each vehicle is identified by its license plate. Parking garage customers are able to avoid the hassle of keeping track of their tickets and time, while also avoiding penalties for incorrect ticket payments or even losing their tickets. Furthermore, the automated surveillance reverts back to them in the event in the event of a disagreement. These parking systems track the location of each vehicle within the area and provide total control.
Analysis Of Journey Time.
Analysis of the journey times (JTA) is essential for authorities to determine the speed at which they pass through vehicles and their duration between one point to the next. Furthermore, these analyses help to plan better routes for traffic officials.
Traffic Management.
The term “traffic management” is used to describe the general concept that describes the numerous benefits that ANPR provides. It can be utilized in cities to spot overspeeding vehicles and vehicles that are driving recklessly or other incidents that happen. ANPR can be used to measure and analyze traffic data related to area of a specific area or a city. In a larger sense traffic management provides insights into traffic congestion to aid in the planning of traffic.
Retail Park Security.
Retail parks typically have to deal with parking spaces that are not legal, leading to problems when it comes to parking spaces or even suspicious actions. This type of security threat could be mitigated with ANPR technology that ensures only authorized vehicles park in parking spaces.
Tollbooth Records.
Manual tollbooth management on roads is still an important method in some regions around the globe. Often, tollbooths leverage different technologies for autonomous tollbooth management. For instance, on expansive freeways ANPR lets authorities get license plate numbers to assist in paying tolls through the mail, or in a way that is automatic instead of stopping and making payments at a manually operated tollbooth. Therefore, ANPR enables efficient toll booth management, reducing the time required for operation and thereby increasing efficiency.
Summary
ANPR is a complex process due to the different number of stages. It is difficult to achieve 100% accuracy since each step is dependent on the preceding one. Certain elements like lighting conditions, vehicle shadows, the non-uniformity of the license plate numbers, variations in backgrounds, and fonts affect how ANPR performs. ANPR certain systems operate in these conditions only and may not provide accurate results in harsh conditions. Certain designs are designed and utilized for specific countries. This means that there is plenty of potentials to enhance this model and develop more robust models that can detect number plates and assist with Parking Management Systems and much more.
