Argentina. Through the recognition of patents, Autovía del Mar managed to identify and automate the passage of resident vehicles and guarantee the correct allocation of the benefit of exemption or payment bonus.
Axis Communications through its cameras was chosen by Autovía del Mar (AUMAR), concessionaire of routes in the province of Buenos Aires, for the identification of vehicles. Telectrónica was the integrator in charge of implementing the solution that includes Axis cameras and Neurallabs' LPR (patent recognition by artificial vision) technology.
The tolls of the corridor of more than 600 kms that connect routes 2,11,63,56 and 7, concessioned by AUMAR, required a technological update in its collection system that would allow it to solve the challenge stipulated in the concession contract to exempt or subsidize the payment of residents and inhabitants of certain parties of the Atlantic coast. For this they needed to identify and automate the passage of vehicles registered as residents and ensure the correct allocation of this benefit.
Initially, it was thought to use different technologies to solve the need, including: identification cards or RFID tags, but these options involved a high investment cost and difficult to recover. Therefore, the System Integrator Telectrónica chose to test Neurallabs' LPR technology along with different camera types and brands. The results were successful and AXIS 1113 Network cameras were considered the most suitable for taking a clear and accurate image and achieving the vehicle identification objective.
"This solution combined the effort of three companies Telectrónica, Neurallabs and Axis to obtain a state-of-the-art product that provides almost immediate benefits, easy to implement and requires very few changes from the point of view of civil works, which simplifies its installation and production," says Sergio Iannone, Toll Manager of Telectrónica.
With the implementation of LPR technology and AXIS IP video cameras, AUMAR managed to automate the identification of the majority of residents of the route area, reaching a very high reading rate. In addition, the solution allowed them to improve auditing and security thanks to photos and video in the form of data taken by AXIS cameras.
In this regard, Claudio Reynaga, Administrator of Sistema Autovía del Mar S.A., says: "At first we were a little incredulous about recognition rates and processing speed when everything was integrated with the toll collection system, we even thought that the car should stop for the system to recognize and enable it. But the numbers show us that the recognition rates are excellent and users pass without stopping as if it were a free-flow type system."
The camera model chosen for this project is AXIS M1113, a professional and accessible fixed camera that stands out for excellent image quality, the varifocal lens with DC iris for outdoor lighting conditions, multiple H.264 sequences and power over Ethernet.
"We chose Axis for the excellence of their product, the reliability of the brand and the ability to incorporate and model complexity," said Sergio Iannone. For his part, Damián Gurski, Commercial Director for Latin America and Brazil of Neurallabs, said: "The choice of Axis cameras has been a real success. We as Axis development partners have a great deal of experience, we recommend them and that is why many of our customers integrate them with our software."
After the excellent results, AUMAR evaluates using the same technology for other uses. "LPR technology is very interesting to us and allows us to think about many applications, for example measuring average speed of vehicles between stations, using it as a contingency in electronic toll lanes when the tag device is not recognized and the patent is," concludes Claudio Reynaga.
"We believe the success of this project will encourage other customers to use LPR technology in similar applications. In Neurallabs we have a strong specialization in the development of character recognition (OCR) software", concludes Damián Gurski.
