I-CUBE Facial, License Plate Recognition and Image Analysis by Barry T. Dudley 031 764 3077 or 082 562 8225 or LPR at I-Cube dot co dot za

[ Johannesburg, 7 June 2007 ] - Transport minister Jeff Radebe will meet the auditor-general on Monday to discuss a damning report on the electronic National Traffic Information System (eNatis) that was the subject of much media reporting last week.

“We will, thereafter, issue a joint communiqué and provide the much-needed clarity and detail on this matter,” Radebe told the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) yesterday.

The report found security was weak, meaning it was possible to hack into eNatis. Passwords were also weak – or absent – and documents on the system were not secured and could easily be circulated.

Radebe denied this was the case. “I can confirm, however, that the period during which the audit was conducted was June 2006, when the current eNatis was under construction and largely the challenges were overcome during the migration process from the Natis to the eNatis (sic),” he said.

eNatis “operating optimally”

Radebe also insisted eNatis had overcome its teething troubles. He told the NCOP that “…the challenge relating to the capacity of the vehicle registration functionality of the system, which we experienced in April/May, is a thing of the past.

“As I stand before you, the system is stable and operating optimally, performing in excess of 500 000 transactions per day.” He did not define what was meant by a “transaction”.

”I also want to state that we have invoked clause 26, together with schedule 15 in the contract, which commits the service provider to ensure the smooth transfer of the system to government and system optimisation. Within the next 30 days we shall finalise a transfer management plan and we are confident the transfer will take place within a capped period of 12 months.”

Anecdotal evidence

The consumer experience is mixed. Motorist Jared Wright yesterday renewed his driver's licence in Randburg. “It might have been the rain, but I didn't have to stand in a queue once. The only delay I had was with the taking of my photograph,” he says.

However, he adds that the official who assisted him said she saw no difference between Natis and eNatis in terms of speed or efficiency.

Fury Toyota Darrenwood sales manager Carlos Matos says the system is now running much better than in early May, when it took up to three weeks to register a new vehicle. But he is still not impressed. “It is not running as smoothly as the previous one,” he says of eNatis. “It still has some problems.”

Matos says the mooted introduction of vehicle licence renewal by Internet or ATM, in October, may make a crucial difference. “It will be a huge bonus. It will relieve a lot of our problems, because most people will then renew their licences over the Internet and it will just be us dealers in the queue.”

Retail Motor Industry Organisation CE Jeff Osborne says it appears the system has stabilised, though it is still a bit slow. He says his organisation met Radebe last week. The minister's team conceded eNatis was not as fast as they wanted it to be “but they are working on it”, he says.

A key concern now is staff attitude and an apparent lack of training. “They find every excuse in the book not to function effectively,” Osborne notes. He says the transport department is aware of the problem and is putting service level agreements in place for licensing centres. “That's the only way to deal with it. It is a service delivery issue.”

Traffic project sputters back to life
BY MARTIN CZERNOWALOW, ITWEB SENIOR JOURNALIST

Good progress
[Johannesburg, 30 May 2006] - Work on the South African National Roads Agency Limited's (Sanral's) R28 million traffic monitoring project is expected to recommence this week, after being plagued by power interruptions that have set back the initiative by about two to three months.

Project manager Alex van Niekerk says repeated theft of fibre optic infrastructure and power cables has essentially halted the project, but the project team will start work again in the coming days.

The project, between Johannesburg and Pretoria, comprises the installation of 70 closed-circuit television cameras, aimed at gathering information about traffic problems, trends and conditions, explains Van Niekerk. This information will then be communicated to emergency services and disseminated to the public, warning motorists about potential traffic issues along a particular route.

The cameras are being installed between the Shell Ultra City, on the N1 freeway, and New Road, in Midrand, on the South-bound side of the N1. However, thieves targeting copper cable have repeatedly destroyed the fibre optic backbone for the cameras, “unintentionally” ripping it up along with the power cables.

Van Niekerk says the project team will commence with on-site work this week, conducting traffic measuring experiments.

Good progress

“The theft is more or less under control,” he notes, adding that increased security has helped the situation. “The work is back on track and we are making good progress.”

However, as a result, the pilot study for the project has been delayed by two to three months. Thus far, only one tender has been awarded for the project – the R4.7 million software development tender, awarded to Cape Town-based Sport and Traffic Technologies.

Van Niekerk adds that a request for information for the supply of traffic detection equipment has been announced. This component of the project is valued at between R1 million and R2 million. It is unknown when other tenders may be announced.

Following the completion of the pilot, the project is expected to be officially launched, and information gathered will be distributed via a Web site, SMS, radio reports and variable electronic signs along the road.

Sanral is also testing the feasibility of the electronic vehicle identification component of the project, which relies on 915MHz radio frequency identification tags to gather information about vehicles travelling along the Ben Schoeman.

AURORA - Aurora Police Lt. Troy Edwards lacks David Hasselhoff's long, curly hair.

His Ford Crown Victoria isn't as sleek as the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that Hasselhoff's 1980s TV character, Michael Knight, knew fondly as KITT.

But Edwards is pretty close to living the Knight Rider dream, thanks to a new gizmo that turns cruisers into artificial intelligence machines.

As Edwards handed one man a ticket during a traffic stop this week, the two cameras mounted to the roof of his patrol car scanned the license plates whizzing by.

When Edwards returned to his driver's seat, the laptop in his passenger seat sounded a siren and flashed a red bar next to a photo of a green Kia up ahead.

Edwards didn't need a sarcastic one-liner from his car to know what to do next.

The lawman dutifully fastened his seat belt and floored it, 60 mph, until he caught up with the driver, who had a warrant out for his arrest.

Two stops in 20 minutes. Nice work, KITT.

Edwards arrested the man, whose wife then arrived to drive the Kia away.

"Why was he pulled over?" she said. "Because his license plate showed that he had a warrant," Edwards replied.

"Wow, that's modern," she deadpanned, eyeing the cameras.

Aurora Police bought two of the plate readers in March, for about $25,000 each.

In the past six months, Denver Police and the Colorado State Patrol also have each equipped three cars with the devices.

"We're confident they are going to pay big dividends in the future," Denver Police spokesman Sonny Jackson said.

Growing out of a partnership between gun manufacturer Remington and Italian information technology company Elsag, the Mobile Plate Hunter uses optical character-recognition technology developed for Italian postal workers to sort letters and parcels.

The readers tell officers whether a driver's license has been canceled or revoked, if the car or plates are stolen or if there are any warrants out for the driver's arrest.

Without the cameras, officers must radio in a suspicious looking vehicle's tag or enter it manually into a laptop computer.

The cameras, by contrast, read 1,500 to 2,000 plates per day automatically, without requiring any attention from officers in the patrol car.

The cameras are so effective that Edwards had to ignore sirens alerting him to three drivers with canceled or revoked licenses because he was already busy writing someone else a ticket for the same violation.

In one recent 48-hour period, Aurora's two scanner-equipped cruisers produced seven warrant arrests and 25 tickets for driving with revoked or canceled licenses, and spotted someone driving a stolen car.

Officers upload the most current information on traffic offenders to their laptops from the Colorado Crime Information Center.

Officials hope to incorporate the National Crime Information Center database, so that the scanners will be able to search for warrants from across the country.

They also want to include information in the database about which drivers are registered sex offenders and which ones are on parole.

"This thing's fun," Edwards said as he pulled into an Aurora Kmart parking lot this week.

As he drove down aisles of cars, the laptop flashed pictures of license plates on both sides of him. In three minutes, he had checked 100 cars. Three had owners whose licenses had been canceled or suspended.

"I always get a hit when I go to Kmart," he said.

If his KITT could talk, it might tell him he's a regular blue light special.

How it works

• Officers upload the most current information on traffic offenders to their laptops from the Colorado Crime Information Center.

• Two cameras magnet-mounted to the roof scan license plates in the lanes on either side of the police cars.

• The laptop screen flashes a picture of every license plate it reads, as it reads it. The software instantly indicates whether the plate is cleared or tagged.

• If the plate clears, a green bar lights up next to the picture. If the plate is connected to someone with a warrant or a canceled or revoked license or a stolen vehicle or plate, a red bar flashes next to the picture and the laptop emits a siren noise.

• The officer then pulls the driver over, gets their license and registration and calls the information into a communications center, where it is double-checked. The officer then writes a ticket or makes an arrest as necessary.

Knight Rider 101

David Hasselhoff was the Knight Rider in the hit NBC show, which aired from 1982 to 1986. But the real star was his modified Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. KITT, short for "Knight Industries Two Thousand," could talk, reason and even deliver sarcastic one-liners to Hasselhoff's character, Michael Knight, who drove around the country fighting crime.

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