BY LEON ENGELBRECHT , ITWEB SENIOR WRITER • Quick print • Send to a friend • Send a sms • Post a comment READ IN THIS STORY: 
Additional functionality [ Johannesburg, 29 November 2006 ] - The KwaZulu-Natal Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) will put its experimental Average Speed Determination (ASD) system into effect next Tuesday.

RTI director Johan Schnell says the launch of the ASD system, originally set for early November, was delayed by “legislative and operational needs”.

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ASD measures average speed based on a pair of licence plate recognition (LPR) units, and issues a ticket, or directly informs the road user using electronic road signs that he is committing a moving violation. For this trial, a single system is being installed on a stretch of the N3 between Durban and Pietermaritzburg.

The LPR-based speed measurement system has several advantages over other techniques. This includes the fact that the violation detection is not based on a singular point but rather on the length of the route, so it slows down the traffic along the entire route rather than in specific points which are quickly known to drivers, Schnell says.

Additional advantages are that the system is automatic and easy to set up, provides the evidence in images, covers all lanes and operates 24 hours a day, using invisible infrared illumination.

Additional functionality

Schnell says the trial was originally only to test the system's speed measuring ability. “But there is no point doing just that,” he says. “We want to share the system and what it can do with a number of users. There is no point photographing stolen vehicles, or vehicles associated with people with outstanding warrants… Lots of people have little bits of outstanding business with government, sometimes more serious business than speeding, not having a valid licence disk, or a valid drivers licence,” Schnell adds, “and we'd like to conclude that business.”

The systems developers have been roped in to make the trial variant more multifunctional so that it can help customs and excise, as well as immigration agents track down suspects and also assist police and prison officials to serve outstanding warrants.

“We are making a lot of demands on the developers, who, I must say, have accepted the challenge and will be making it work better for a broader network of people,” Schnell says.

License plate reader (LPR) technology. 

We are proud to support our law enforcement agency partners,  helping law enforcement across SA and abroad," I-Cube LPR systems can read plates from all provinces and most foreign countries. The system works in real time to identify vehicles of interest allowing officers to prepare for safe and immediate interdiction. Both LPR systems capture key vehicle-related data, which can be analyzed for criminal intelligence, providing for both a white list and a black list management.

The system consists of advanced cameras and proprietary software that captures photographic images of license plates, translates the visual characters into numbers and letters, and then compares each plate to pre-loaded Hot Lists in order to identify vehicles of interest right on the spot. The technology also captures date and time stamps, as well as GPS coordinates, which can aid criminal intelligence efforts by placing a suspect at a scene, identifying possible witnesses and more.

Already deployed in over 70 local and 1000 of international sites the I-Cube systems are quickly gaining attention with the law enforcement community as they are credited with assisting in the resolution of thousands of vehicle-related crimes over the past 25 years. With seventy percent of criminal activity tied to a vehicle, quickly capturing and interpreting license plate data is critical to the law enforcement mission,

I-Cube Solutions would like to propose the following advanced license plate recognition solution to maximize your ROAD BLOCK .

Key areas are the linkage between the vehicle license plate, car colour, shape, type and the LIVE database of known suspect cars.

I-Cube Solutions has a number of LPR sites around SA, any of which you can use for Road Safety Week. 23-29 April 2007. A number of MOBILE LPR solutions available, if you would like to use these? 

Possibly you would like to use any of these sites with a ROAD BLOCK just after the cameras, where all drivers are captured on camera, those not wearing seat belts are then identified and the license plate noted.

These specific license plates are then either specifically pulled over by SAPS / METRO or possibly you would like to SMS the drivers who pass any of the sites to wear their seatbelts?

 One could E-Mail the drivers if we had the e-mail address or even print an image for them, along with any message you might wish to put out?

 Below is a typical proposal, if you would like to send these to any metro or SAPS who you wish us to work with?  

Please review the Presentation (PPT) or (PDF) and I look forward to discussing a suitable way forward in order to begin the operation.

The system design, list of equipment and possible cost of a typical solution can be found HERE

Thanks

 Barry

 I-Cube.   All rights reserved.  Revised: January 05, 2008 .