Sweeping Up Parking Violators F
License plate recognition technology is optimizing street-sweeping operations and helping cities catch even more scofflaws. BY SIMON MIHAJLOVIC
OR MOST CITIES, PROVIDING municipal services that are both environ- mentally-friendly and cost-effective are at the top of the agenda. One service that merits particular attention is street sweep-
ing.The use of street sweepers really benefits the envi- ronment by removing not only solid debris, but also pollutants such as oil, grease, nitrogen and phosphorus off the roadways.
However, the nemesis of every street sweeper is the illegally
parked vehicle. For every vehicle blocking the sweeper along its route, three
parking spaces’worth of street are kept from being cleaned. Over an entire route, this adds up quickly and causes a high volume of contaminants to be picked up by storm water runoff, making their way into waterways. Despite the passing of bylaws to prohibit parking during
sweeping operations, violators are not easily deterred and the streets are seldom clear of vehicles. To patrol all sweeper routes adequately, cities must resort to increasing the number of parking officers and associated resources, such as parking enforcement vehicles. Faced with compressed budgets, cities need more effec- tivemeans of keeping the streets clear. One option is the use of license plate recognition (LPR) tech-
nology. Through optical character recognition (OCR) on images taken by specialized cameras, this tech- nology enables automated reading of vehicle license plates. When used on a street sweeper, the LPR solution will scan for and detect parking violators. Law enforcement and various
vehicle operator. Typically, the operator will need only to pause and resume the camera reading using a small touch-screen com- puter inside the sweeper cabin. The LPR system can even be fully automated, automatically
activating the cameras when the sweeper brushes are in the down position, for example. All vehicle LPR captures are silently logged, and include the
LPR systems focus mainly on the vehicle and the license plate, and not on vehicle occupants.
traffic applications have been lever- aging LPR technology for several years, and LPR has proven to be an effective and reliable force- multiplier in the detection and verification of license
plates.Today, LPR is becomingmorewidespread for parking enforcement appli- cations, and it is even being deployed in cities across the U.S. in street-sweeper applications.
How does it work? Specialized LPR cameras installed on the street sweepers
automatically detect and capture images of illegally parked vehi- cles along their route, as they go around avoiding them. The cam- eras are very advanced and built for the harsh duty seen on street sweepers. They are capable of reading license plates with high accuracy, at full cruising speed, and in complete darkness as well. Certain cameras even have built-in computers capable of
doing all the LPR processing, translating to a very minimal hard- ware footprint inside the sweeper. The entire LPR system is designed for ease-of-use and forminimal involvement fromthe in-
22 FEBRUARY 2011 • PARKING TODAY •
www.parkingtoday.com
license plate number, time and location of violation, an image zoomed on the license plate, and a color overviewpicture for vehi- cle identification. It’s also possible to include an additional wide-angle shot of the surrounding area, so that the vehicle and parking sign appear in the same view, as some cities require the additional evidence in case of ticket disputes. The captured records are then
transferred to a back-office soft- ware application, where they are stored in a central database and
made available, as necessary, for review. The transfer can be done with a bulk offload at the end of the sweeper’s shift or even in real- time should wireless connectivity be available. Asweeper also can be configured to send captures to different
offices depending on the zone they are currently sweeping. From that point on, processes are put in place so that back-office review- ers can verify the data, issue the ticket formailing, and even upload it to a website so that the vehicle owner can view and pay his cita- tion online.
More LPR with sweeping operations Optionally, additional functionalities can be leveraged from
deploying LPR systems on street sweepers. As systems are equippedwith aGPS antenna, geo-localization data can be used to track the sweeper’s route. It can then be played back fromthe back- office software, allowing managers to extract metrics that could help thembettermanage their street-sweeping crews.
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