The world’s first zero-emission parking enforcement vehicle has gone live in the southern Netherlands city of Bergen op Zoom, using a combination of ARVOO’s scanning system and Q-Free’s Intrada software.
With the retirement of the Netherlands’ Chipknip electronic card payment system, Bergen op Zoom decided to digitize the existing badge system for on-street parking, as well as enforcement. Councilor Yvonne Kammeijer, who is in charge of the city’s parking policy, is also the alderman for sustainability, and she took a decision to use an electric vehicle (EV) as part of the solution, in line with the authority’s environmental policy and to take advantage of EV’s silence in operation.
The Renault ZOE EV has been equipped with ARVOO’s ScanGenius rooftop-mounted camera system and Q-Free’s Intrada automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) software.
The new EV-based enforcement vehicle can check whether a vehicle holds a parking permit, or has paid. It can also account for whether a vehicle is a new arrival and the driver is absent but in the process of making a payment, and notify on-street operatives to make checks and issue penalty notices as appropriate. Unlike the previous system where a violation notice was placed on an offending vehicle’s windscreen, with the new digitized system notices are generated from the back office and sent to the owner’s/driver’s registered or home addresses.
ARVOO’s all-in-one ScanGenius plate scanning system combines processing units, GPS systems, and ANPR and panoramic vision cameras, in one roof-top box, turning any car into a powerful mobile parking or traffic enforcement system scanner. Simultaneous diagonal, parallel and perpendicular license plate scanning is provided by multiple ANPR cameras covering up to 360º. The ScanGenius license plate information can be augmented with GPS location systems providing precision at up to centimeter-level, while the vehicle is in motion. As well as license plate information, wide angle context images are available, providing evidence of the area surrounding an illegally parked car.
Best-known for its tolling solutions, Q-Free’s Intrada is one of the most accurate systems for vehicle identification and ALPR currently available. Intrada is available to product suppliers and integrators looking for reliable ALPR software as an embedded OEM component, or as PC license compatible with any kind of traffic camera, delivered through software modules, server installations or hosted web services. Intrada features a recognition library for over 150 countries and states around the world, and is available for all regular hardware platforms and operating systems.
