158 | TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
Increasing safety with ALPR Advanced license plate recognition technology is helping modern cities to protect all types of road users without the need for additional, intrusive infrastructure Words |Gábor Józsa and Pál Szemere, ARH, Hungary
A buzz phrase of our time is ‘smart city’. What does it really mean? Essentially it’s about making better use of big data. As an example, consider how tracking the movement of athletes via multiple sensors helps improve their performance. Likewise, multi-sensor traffic monitoring systems have enormous potential power. Unlike traditional ITS, an automatic license plate recognition (ALPR)-based ITS identifies each passing vehicle, and follows its movement through the city. It does not require RF tags or related infrastructure. ALPR-based traffic information is very precise, yields 21st century route planning, and helps in making strategic decisions.
Creating safer cities To create safer cities, we need an enforcement system that automatically recognizes hazards that lead to traffic congestion – 100% based on image processing, without any road-intrusive technology. Video analytics measures the length of car lines and waiting time in busy intersections. Gridlock detection helps design and enable better traffic control. “We have a past, present and future in developing intelligent transport systems,” says László Kis, CEO of ARH, which specializes in ALPR-based solutions, OCR and imaging devices. “ARH has accumulated vast experience in plate recognition. We are globally known as an independent developer of ALPR algorithms. Relying on field-tested experience and in-house know-how, it was a logical move into complex ITS. Our mission is to contribute to the safety and efficiency of high-speed life in the 21st century by giving simple answers to complex traffic problems.”
Intertraffic World | Annual Showcase 2018
ARH’s proprietary Carmen is an ALPR engine with a difference: it can be used globally. Besides Latin characters, Carmen reads Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese and other alphabets. Carmen reads HazMat (hazardous material) codes, as well as UIC railroad codes, container codes and USDOT codes. ARH’s TrafficSpot is a single-gantry, multilane lane controller middleware that can monitor free-flow/stop-and-go traffic with both doppler and lidar sensors and a set of purpose-made cameras. Benefits include 100% detection rate and 28 predefined vehicle categories. Take a traffic point’s complex multi-lane monitoring capabilities and compress it into
a portable device. ARH’s S1 operates automatically: it collects, stores and forwards data as packages into a database center. S1 reads license plates up to 800m (2,600ft) detecting traffic violations such as speeding, solid-line crossing, wrong-way driving, and improper use of lanes. License plate recognition, ADR code recognition, congestion detection and traffic count – no rival product offers such complex monitoring.
Only the relevant images provided ARH’s Microcam M402 is an extremely compact dashboard/rooftop camera. A unique preselection algorithm running on board forwards only those image frames
