Skip to main content

Innovative vehicle identification improves tolling

HTS now offers a sophisticated vehicle identity recognition (VIR) package, which offers key benefits over basic LPR technology. The VIR patentpending technology provides a comprehensive profile of each car including make, model, colour, country or state name and special plate icons.
February 14, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Sophisticated vehicle identification technology from HTS can improve efficiency for tolling duties

HTS now offers a sophisticated vehicle identity recognition (VIR) package, which offers key benefits over basic LPR technology. The VIR patent-pending technology provides a comprehensive profile of each car including make, model, colour, country or state name and special plate icons.

"Detecting any discrepancy between the vehicle type and its license plate number, VIR increases the efficiency of toll road operators," said Meta Rotenberg, vice president of business development at 2651 HTS.

The system makes comparisons between vehicle parameters, providing a more complete picture with higher accuracy. The recognition capabilities for identifying vehicles can improve verification and classification. This helps check between the car type, license plate number, and data stored on official databases and the system can provide an alert when a suspicious vehicle passes through the system.

Next generation LPR is a key to increase accuracy and income for toll road operators, as accuracy in billing is paramount.

"Even though today's LPR systems can almost perfectly identify a car's license plate as genuine and original, the system cannot indicate any discrepancy between the license plate and the car the plate is on. The suite increases the efficiency of toll road operators, who can bill for road usage more effectively. Since accuracy in billing is paramount, the automatic cross checking of vehicle parameters can prevent billing the wrong person, and enhance accurate identification and billing," she said.

VIR is a valuable contribution to law enforcement and homeland security organisations, helping them to detect vehicles with false license plates, such as stolen cars, people who are trying to evade highway speed cameras or toll collection, people who replace their license plate with a stolen one to steal fuel.

"We had to meet many challenges developing VIR's special algorithms at HTS' R&D department," said Rotenberg. "For example, vehicle manufacturer logos vary in size, shape and colour and unlike license plates, car logos can be located in different places on the vehicle, or even separated from the car body and placed on the hood." This patent pending technology incorporates video analytics, advanced image processing and computer vision capabilities.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • WiM eases bridge health worries
    July 31, 2024
    Ageing road bridges are leading road authorities to consider the case for using weigh-in-motion - WiM - solutions to monitor the health of such infrastructure, writes Adam Hill.
  • Highway 407 Revisited – smart tollroad extension
    June 7, 2016
    In the late 1990s, World Highways published a supplement on construction of Canada’s Highway 407, the world’s first all-electronic toll road. But how successful has it been? David Arminas reports from Toronto The head office for 407 ETR Concession Company is a low-rise building next to exit 59, just north of Toronto, Canada’s economic powerhouse. The building may be non-descript but inside is the advanced technical heart of Highway 407 ETR – Express Toll Route. It houses the latest toll monitoring techno
  • Weigh in motion systems aid safety, reduce costs
    February 14, 2012
    Advanced weigh-in-motion (WIM) systems can offer a quick payback time
  • Innovation in road design and management software
    February 17, 2012
    The emphasis on data processing and re-use, continues to grow in the development of design and management software. The interoperability of software, the need to handle and process larger amounts of data, and re-use and retention of data sets from one task to another have been a growing emphasis in the past few years. It allows infrastructure companies to get better value from expensively collected information and to focus more on the whole life cycle of projects.