SHRI SHAMBHUBHAI V.

PATEL
COLLEGE OF COMPUTER SCIENCE &
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
(Self-financed B.B.A. & B.C.A. Degree Programming)
Affiliated To VEER NARMAD SOUTH GUJARAT
UNIVERSITY
Near I.C. Gandhi High School, Sumul Dairy Road

REPORT ON
Automatic Number Plate Recognition System

AS PER REQUIREMENT OF THE

BACHELOR OF COMPUTER APPLICALTION (B.C.A.) 6TH
SEMESTER
YEAR: 2022-23

SUBMITTED BY:
LEKHITA G. NAKRANI
Acknowledgement
Contents

Sr. no Topics Page No

Acknowledgement I

Contents II
Abstract III

1 History
2 Introduction to ANPR
3 Details of ANPR system
4 Example related ANPR
5 ANPR application
6 Diagrams and Figures
7 Comparative Technologies
8 Advantages & Disadvantages
9 Future Enhancement
10 Conclusion
11 References
Abstract
Traffic control and vehicle owner identification has become major problem in every country.
Sometimes it becomes difficult to identify vehicle owner who violates traffic rules and drives too
fast. Therefore, it is not possible to catch and punish those kinds of people because the traffic
personal might not be able to retrieve vehicle number from the moving vehicle because of the
speed of the vehicle. Therefore, there is a need of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)
system as a one of the solutions to this problem. There are numerous ANPR systems available
today. These systems are based on different methodologies but still it is really challenging task as
some of the factors like high speed of vehicle, non-uniform vehicle number plate, language of
vehicle number and different lighting conditions can affect a lot in the overall recognition rate.
Most of the system works under the limitations. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)
system is an automated mass surveillance method that uses several Digital Image Processing
(DIP) technique and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on images to read and identify
vehicle registration plates. ANPR has yielded multiple positive results in practical applications
such as: access control, traffic law enforcement, inventory and property management, security
systems surveillance, parking space allocation, and road traffic surveillance. The automatic
number plate recognition system (ANPR) developed in this research work focused mainly on
number plate localization and license plate extraction from an image for possible application in
different areas. It achieves this by using several OpenCV digital image processing (DIP)
technique developed with python to bring about image segmentation from which some image
segments were tested for characters, so that the length of character found on each segment with
similar properties becomes the key towards localizing and cropping off the region with the actual
vehicle license plate. Some properties of characters that was used to isolate the possible licence
plate are the fact that characters of the license plate have corresponding image height, width,
aspect ratio etc. using these pixel properties it was possible to filter off unwanted contour
lines/curves that stands out as noise while localizing the actual region of the image having the
plate number. Once the region was obtained OCR was used via a trained template for several
character styles to obtain the text format of the license plate. The work developed had a plate
localization accuracy of 100% and 90% read accuracy.

KEYWORDS :

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR),

Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR),
Artificial Neural Network (ANN),
Character Segmentation Image Segmentation,
Optical Character Reader (OCR),
Digital Image Processing
1. History
The history of ANPR is considerably longer than most people realize. Because of its prolific use
in more recent years for broad range applications such as traffic studies, access control and
parking.

ANPR was invented in 1976 at the PSDB (Police Scientific Development Branch - Now titled
Home Office Scientific Development Branch) and early systems were developed for use from
1979.

Since its inception, ANPR technology has evolved and adapted with the times, finding new
outlets and application taking it beyond the boundaries of just policing and security. Below are a
few notable milestones along our journey to date:

 Early trial system was deployed in the UK on the A1 road at dart ford tunnel as part of a
“Ring of Steel” camera network around the city of London in 1993.

 2005 - ANPR International limited formed - 18th may 2005 to be exact. Born out of belief
that ANPR technology could do a lot more than it had to date. Its first development
comes with the creation of the eyeTRAFFIC back office platform, which is designed to
handle ANPR data from a number of different network sources and process the data
through a range of modular applications.

 2006 - ANPR international deployed its first static camera system for Parking
Management bayGUARDIAN which is the first module built for the eyeTRAFFIC back
officer system. The system allowed car park operators to monitor vehicles in and out of
car parks, calculating the amount of time a vehicle spent on site and automatically
identifying those vehicles that were not authorized or stayed too long.

 2009 – ANPR international develops its first mobile ANPR product – strretSWEEPER,
which is designed for multiple applications including Traffic surveys, Mobile
surveillance and untaxed vehicle enforcement for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing
Agency. On its first day on the road in Central London, streetSWEEPER detects over 27
untaxed vehicles in just a few hours.

 2013 – ANPR international wins Technology award for mobile traffic survey work
carried out for Gloucestershire country council. The survey uses a fleet of
strretSWEEPER equipped vehicles to collect data on traffic profiles and parking habits
around a number of towns and cities to help the Council in better understanding traffic
flows and vehicle use.

 2017 - ANPR launches gateGUARDIAN as a retrofit barrier protection solution to

address the safety issue of vehicle.
2. Introduction of ANPR
Automatic Number Plate Recognition is a technology that uses optical character recognition
(OCR) on images to read vehicle registration plate to create vehicle location data. As of 2006,
systems can scan number plates at around one per second on cars travelling up to 100 mph (160
km/h). They can use existing closed-circuit television or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones
specifically designed for the task. They are used by various police forces and as a method
of electronic toll collection on pay-per-use roads.

ANPR can be used to store the images captured by the cameras as well as the text from the
license plate, with some configurable to store a photograph of the driver. Systems commonly
use infrared lighting to allow the camera to take the picture at any time of day. A powerful flash
is included in at least one version of the intersection-monitoring cameras, serving to both
illuminate the picture and make the offender aware of his or her mistake. ANPR technology
tends to be region specific, owing to plate variation from place to place.

The software aspect of the system runs on standard PC hardware and can be linked to other
applications or databases. It first uses a series of image manipulation techniques to detect,
normalize and enhance the image of the number plate, and finally optical character recognition
(OCR) to extract the alphanumeric of the license plate. ANPR/ALPR systems are generally
deployed in one of two basic approaches; one allows for the entire process to be performed at the
lane location in real-time, the other transmits all the images from many lanes to a remote
computer location and performs the OCR process there at some later point in time. When done at
the lane site, the information captured of the plate alphanumeric, date-time, lane identification,
and any other information that is required is completed in somewhere around 250 milliseconds.
This information, now small data packets, can easily be transmitted to some remote computer for
further processing if necessary, or stored at the lane for later retrieval. In the other arrangement
there are typically large numbers of PCs used in a server farm to handle high workloads, such as
those found in the London congestion charge project. Often in such systems there is a
requirement to forward images to the remote server and this can require larger bandwidth
transmission mediums.

Concerns about these systems have centered on privacy fears of government tracking citizens'
movements and media reports of misidentification and high error rates. However, as they have
developed, the systems have become much more accurate and reliable.
3. Working of ANPR System
Automated number plate recognition (ANPR) systems apply optical character recognition (OCR)
in combination with other image processing techniques to read vehicle registration plates. ANPR
is one of the most accurate and widely applied computer vision systems, and the applied methods
are constantly evolving to increase the performance, accuracy, cost-efficiency, robustness, and
Scalability of automatic license plate recognition software.

Number plate recognition basically consist of three concrete steps namely:

1. Number Plate Extraction
2. Character Segmentation
3. Template Matching

However, these steps are further divided into a series of other steps of whose working is as
followed:

1. Loading RGB image:

The image whose number plate recognition is to be done is loaded.

Fig: Loading an image

2. Grayscale Conversion:

This RGB image is converted to grayscale image using cvCvtColor() function.

Fig: Grayscale Image

3. Histogram equalization:

Histogram equalization is performed on this image using cvEqualizeHist() function.

Fig: Histogram Image

4. Binarization:

This image is then converted to binary using adaptive thresholding.

Fig: Binarized Image

5. Dilation:

This image is dilated using cvDilate() function.

Fig: Dilated Image

6. Edge detection:

Dilated image is substracted from the original image to get the edges.

Fig: Edge Detected Image

7. Plate region extraction:

Plate region is found out by passing rectangular image over the previous using
cvMatchTemplate() function.

Fig: Extracted Plate Region

8. Character segmentation:

Character are segmented from the number plate image which is then used for template
Matching.

Fig: Segmented Character

9. Template matching:

Segmented Characters are template matched with the templates of each character and the
Number plate is identified as a string.

Fig: Output in string form

Fig: Output after Template Matching

4. ANPR System Types
There are two primary types of ANPR systems:

1) Fixed Systems:

Fixed ANPR systems are those that are installed at a specific location and point in time.
For example, these systems may be installed at toll booths, border crossings, or other strategic
locations.

2) Mobile Systems:

Mobile ANPR systems are those that are carried by a vehicle and can be used to scan the
registration plates of other vehicles. For example, these systems may be used by police cars to
track down wanted vehicles.
5. Examples related ANPR System
Most members of the public will be aware that ANPR is used by many police forces to
track down criminal behavior and is also seen on many UK motorways as a method of
detecting speeding through average speed calculation. However, ANPR is used in a
variety of other ways to support the security and safety of the public as well as supporting
efficiencies in the way we interact with transportation and vehicle based infrastructure.

Examples of this are the user of ANPR in

 Car Park Management

Efficient Parking Management relies upon the seamless integration of superior ANPR
technology to ensure the highest performance, accuracy and functionality.
The IQ and IQX high specification intelligent ANPR camera ranges provide all parking
management users with these benefits as standard but offer further flexibility, reliability
and productivity through the combination of specialist experience, quality control and
continual product evaluation and advancement.

 Journey Time Analysis

With the increasing demands on our city infrastructure, Intelligent Transport Systems
(ITS) are seen as a way to manage transport resources more effectively.
ANPR technology is becoming increasingly important in offering key capabilities to
enhance the performance of journey time analysis and management systems.

 Traffic Management

ANPR helps to get a lot of information. In Delhi, the traffic condition is chaotic. As
traffic congestion causes a huge loss financially. It is important to improve the traffic
management system. ANPR can help to ensure mobility and traffic safety. Traffic can be
made more free flowing by improving information system, or more specifically, through
information exchange.
ANPR provides an easy solution for measuring section-related traffic data. It can predict
vehicle journey times over a given section of road. It can also measure vehicle speed. It
precisely determines the average speed of vehicles travelling on a section of road by
 identifying their registration plate at both ends of a given journey. When vehicles pass
through different road signs, their registration plates are displayed with a preventive
speeding or vehicle inter-distance safety message.

 Weighbridges

When a vehicle approaches the weighbridge, the intelligent ANPR camera instantly
reads, checks and recalls the vehicle details from a stored database for a fast and efficient
transaction. . If an unknown vehicle approaches the weighbridge the driver can weigh on
a temporary ID or the weighbridge operator can enter the details manually which will
then be stored for future transactions.

 Bus Lane Enforcement

Bus Lane Enforcement is an important element of efficient transportation for millions of

people throughout the world.
Many drivers do not follow given procedures regarding bus lanes which results in an
increase in congestion as well as accidents with a number of drivers trying to take short
cuts. With the use of ANPR cameras these procedures are better enforced and those that
do not follow such guidelines are identified and suitably fined.
The use of ANPR technology to enforce bus lane usage reduces travelling times for buses
and allows timetables to be more exactly achieved, allowing millions of commuters the
opportunity of arriving at set destinations on time.
6. Pros & Cons of ANPR System
Advantage of ANPR System:
ANPR offers numerous advantages that are the basis for real-world applications. Most
benefits of ANPR come with automating manual tasks, highly efficient space
management, governance, and increasing the customer experience.

 Automation:
The automated recognition of number plates allows automated alerts and controls for
facilities. Hence, ANPR is a key technology for smart cities or toll stations. Accuracy:
ANPR systems can achieve very high accuracy, and can quickly and easily identify
vehicles by their license plates.

 Analytics:
The generated data can be used for traffic flow analytics. This is particularly important
for operating Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), where data processing
technologies are used to improve the mobility of people and goods, demand management,
increase safety, reduce traffic congestion and manage incidents effectively.

 Identification:
Fast recognition of a vehicle numberplate is the basis for fast and seamless vehicle
identification. The identification can be used to grant vehicles access or find and track
specific vehicles.

 Cost-Efficiency:
The precise and fast number plate recognition doesn’t rely on human input. Large
numbers of license plates can be analyzed very quickly, making it a very efficient method
to identify vehicles. Hence it drives cost-efficient governance and reduces waiting times.

 Low Footprint:
An automated numberplate recognition system is relatively cost-effective to install and
operate. A wide range of cameras is suitable for ANPR.
  Scalability:
The use of emerging technologies such as IoT (or AIoT) and Machine Learning at the
Edge (Edge AI) enable the development of distributed systems. Edge computing makes it
possible to implement offline capabilities, private and cost-efficient video analytics
required for ANPR.

 Convenience:
ANPR is usually integrated with other IT systems and operates in an ecosystem to
provide a seamless and hassle-free experience to the end-users. Hence, the technology is
used to enhance the customer experience and offer new services and products, such as
automated parking payments.

 Versatility:
Automated vehicle identification can be applied for a variety of applications, from
parking management to security, traffic enforcement, logistics optimization in
manufacturing, and so on.

 Security:
ANPR solutions are of great importance for various security and surveillance applications
of computer vision. Such systems help improve security by providing a method to
identify and track multiple vehicles autonomously.

 Environmental benefits:
The use of an ANPR system can help reduce traffic congestion and pollution by
discouraging unnecessary driving. Reducing waiting times, or time to search for parking
spaces in cities helps decrease the environmental pollution.

Disadvantages of ANPR System:

 Extreme Weather Conditions:
In some cases, bad weather and hindrances can make automatic license plate recognition
systems not completely effective. When this happens the security measures might be
turned off and manned surveillance will be more needed.

 Privacy Concerns:
The fact that images and records are kept and stored raises some privacy concerns.
People are usually afraid that the records of someone’s whereabouts in all these footages
might be misused. It can become a subject of data thefts or people with all kinds of
nefarious intentions. However, experts claim that LPR isn’t infringing on anyone’s
 privacy. The police have always been able to run registration plates, as they are issued to
be used on public roadways. Furthermore, this system is much more objective than a
person doing the job. It automatically checks every plate and no discrimination could be
involved. The responsible agencies are taking these privacy concerns into consideration,
to make sure that people feel safer on the road instead of at a bigger risk.

 Challenges That LPR Software Faces:

There are still various problems with automatic license plate recognition systems. The
most common challenge they face is the non-uniformity of license plate number models
for different cities and countries. Their length may also vary. That's why the software
must be customized to the place it’s being used in. Developers now work on easily
customized software that provides high-quality footage and extreme accuracy. This
makes the LPR application suitable for every country in the world. Most of the
challenges that first came up with the idea of automatic LPR are now overcome and the
only thing that should be taken care of is the protection of the collected data.

 Lake of Manned Surveillance:

The availability of an automatic system has reduced the importance of manned
surveillance. Not only is there less traffic personnel on the streets and major crossroads
but those that are there don’t bother to check number plates. This may lead to lapse in
manned security.