New opportunities and markets for ANPR in a context of crisis

The economic situation of some countries of Europe is especially delicate with taxles of unemployment out of control, public organisms sobrendeudados and without resources to invest, etc. This situation has generated new stages and problematic in Europe that have propiciado the entrance of the ANPR with strength in new sectors. The increase of the theft on the one hand and the urgent need to achieve new sources of financials in the public organisms by another, have been two of the factors that have promoted the opening of these new niches of market.

As it is natural, the interest by systems of this type in sectors where the return of this investment is not perceivable or immediate has diminished enormously. Nevertheless, apply the technology ANPR to practically any sector or activity always reports profits since it improves the control, the hygiene and the trazabilidad. Anyway, it is very frequent that was not easy to calculate the return of the investment of clear form. Some examples of these new needs could be the cases of the gasolineras, the city councils or the control of industrial zones.

Usually in a lot of countries of Europe the gasolineras, in diurnal schedule, work in way autoservicio, where the customer serves the fuel and when it finalises pays at the cash desk to credit the corresponding amount.

Although it always has existed the customer that after serving fuel abandons the gasolinera without crediting the repostaje, until the start of the crisis the percentage of services no paid was relatively small and the loss ocasionada was asumible by the gasolinera/distributor and surely saw compensated by the few necessary personnel to attend the business in way autoservicio.

In the actuality, with the existent crisis and with the prices of fuel in historical maxima has shot the number of customers that do not pay. Likewise, the loss is greater when being greater the price of the fuel (in the case of trucks can be speaking of cientos of euros).

In countries like Spain, at present is necessary to credit judicial taxles of some 200 previous euros complaint. Said circumstances have propiciado that it increase the priority of the prevention of the theft. One of the ways to treat to minimise this theft has been the installation of systems ANPR connected to the system of management of the jets, and very often with the system of video recording (NVR) of the that already has the gasolinera.

The operation, to big lines, is the following: it installs a system ANPR with cameras focused to each one of the jets so that the system knows always which was the last/s enrols/s in each one of the roads of repostaje. In the case that a customer abandon the station without paying, his matrícula is added to a ‘black list'. This black list, and here is the profit, is fed and shared by all the service stations of the same group (in some countries exists the doubt on the legal limits the conservation of said list as well as the temporary limits of this). When the ‘customer' treats to repeat the operation in another gasolinera of the group, the system ANPR recognises his matrícula, verifies the black list and if this is located or deshabilita the jet and does not dispense petrol to the customer or forces the prepago for this jet.

Combine this system with a signaling that show clearly that the station of service has this system of hygiene can have besides an effect disuasorio, fulfilling like this the function to avoid the theft. This technology can be, besides, taken advantage of to cultivate the loyalty customers detecting his habits of consumption to facilitate repostaje or propose discounts, etc.

System of cameras ANPR.

In countries like Spain is extending the practice to install systems of management of traffic in way for hire. That is to say, the supplying company has to do charge of the supply and installation of the systems of ANPR, has to carry the maintenance of these systems while it last the agreement and guarantee the maximum possible time of availability of these systems. Also it has to help, even in the daily management of the sanctions. In return, the company receives by part of the city council a fixed amount to the year (quite reduced) and a % of each sanction earned. These agreements are used to to have a length of some 4 years, time in which it recovers the investment without difficulty.

Some of these systems are, for example, the Systems of Radar (control of speed in sensitive or problematic zones of the take care), the Systems of ‘red Photo' (control that it respect the red light of a semaphore) or the Systems of Supervision of the Lane Bus/Taxi (control that vehicles that are not of public transport invade said lanes).

The existent bandwidth in the network of available communications by the city council determines the architecture of the systems. When this bandwidth is low (3g, wimax, etc.) is more appropriate an architecture distributed where the ANPR works in venue and only sends to the centre of control the readings or proposals of sanction. If by the contrary has of an infrastructure with a big bandwidth (optical fibre), an architecture centralised can go down the costs of the system in general, since the ANPR would work of form centralised in an only server. The modality of agreement in rent allows that the public organism (city council) do not do an initial outlay of an important quantity of money, which is very interesting given the current situation.

Although in some country of the south Europe, these systems semigestionados by private companies arrived to be quite unpopular (Italy for example), in general can result very beneficial to pacify the traffic in zones with high siniestralidad, obtain an extra entry so needed in these moments, increase the control and improve the management of the traffic of a city or village.

With the peak of the concept of Smartcity these systems are called to deploy little by little by all our villages and cities interconnected with other systems of ITS (Intelligent Traffic Systems).

The number of thefts in industrial zones has increased considerably these years. The aim of these is used to to be very raw materials, now very valued, like copper, etc. or machinery. Although some of these industrial zones have a control of accesses with barriers and saves of hygiene, the big majority are of free access.

The installation of cameras in all the accesses to the polygon, recognising and storing in a historical the matrículas, has on the one hand an effect disuasorio, if it is very signposted the use of this and is useful also like register of accesses for the police in case to commit a crime.

Frequently these systems store date and hour of the access and exit to the polygon, matrícula, type of access (entrance or exit) and images of the vehicle. When having to recognise matrículas to high speeds are used to to use systems free-flow of recognition of matrículas. Once again, the integration of the technology of recognition of matrículas with a video grabador, gives a big value added to the system being able to see the “previous” or back scene to the step of the vehicle.