Real-Time Number Plate Reading

Abstract Vehicle number plate recognition systems are expected to have numerous applications in traffic surveying and monitoring, e.g. finding stolen cars and controlling access to car parks. In this paper algorithmic improvements to a previous version of a number plate reading system are described. The work builds on the experience gained by the Computer Vision Group at the University of Bristol. This paper addresses the problem of locating the number plate area in the image and proposes a new line based method for number plate location, which is suitable for realtime number plate recognition.