Rapid growth over the past 10 years has dramatically changed Dubai. The population has risen from 860,000 in 2000 to 1.9 million in 2011 and now over a million vehicles are registered in the Emirate. It is therefore no wonder that the boom has also created traffic chaos and a parking problem.

Over the past years United Arab Emirates and the government of Dubai have reacted to the traffic and parking problems with various measures. New infrastructures, such as the new 28 billion Dirham (5.7 billion Euro) underground railway are planned to relieve the traffic on the roads. In the first year of operation, the railway had 6.8 million users. This increased to 38.8 million passengers in 2010 after additional lines came into operation. However, taxis remain the most popular form of public transport in Dubai, with 81.8 million* journeys in 2010 - which by no means alleviates the problem.
The authorities have approved loans to the amount of 3 billion Dirham (616.3 million Euro) for road building and the implementation of an intelligent traffic control system. This ITS project (Intelligent Transport System) provides for the construction of a traffic control centre, tolls on the main traffic routes toward the city centre and a complete restructuring of the parking concept.

The end of parking problems?

With over a million vehicles on the roads, the demand for multi-storey car parks is growing, especially in the business districts of Deira and Bur Dubai. In 2010 alone, the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) planned at least 50 multi-storey car parks in Dubai. Each new multi-storey car park is equipped with a video surveillance system and automatic payment technology.
HNAPR is an automatic registration plate detection solution from Niaar ITS LLC, a company from Dubai. This is a robust and fully automated image processing system with digital industrial cameras from Allied Vision Technologies, which e.g. automatically read car number plates at the entry to multi-storey car parks. HNAPR is designed for continuous operation at up to 50°C, 24/7. It is also optimally protected against dust and strong sunlight.
The Niaar HNAPR system dramatically simplifies and speeds up the processing of all incoming and outgoing vehicles, minimises waiting times and therefore the resulting traffic jams. When a vehicle drives through the gate, an image of the number plate is automatically recorded, analysed by the image processing software and saved in a database together with the date and time. A printer issues a receipt for the customer. As well as optimised processing, the data provide valuable information about the utilisation of the multi-storey car park, e.g. according to the time of day.

The underlying technology

The eye of the HNAPR is a Prosilica GC1290 camera from Allied Vision Technologies. This has a resolution of 1 megapixel and a gigabit Ethernet interface (GigE Vision). Its Sony ICX445 ExView HAD sensor ensures excellent sensitivity, especially in the near infra-red range.
The camera is equipped with a high quality OEM lens and is mounted on a 1 m high post in an IP65 housing which protects it from dust, about 2 to 3 m from the target object. According to local conditions, it can also function reliably at distances of up to 15 m. An infra-red flash provides the necessary illumination in the dark.
The camera is connected to an industrial PC via a Cat6 network cable, or via an optic fibre cable for greater distances. A server unit is installed at each entrance. Every possible character is pre-programmed into the software and is detected from the number plate by means of an OCR function. The Niaar software was programmed in C++. The entire system can be installed within two hours and requires little maintenance. A new calibration every six months is sufficient to ensure a success rate of over 95%. Camera setting such as shutter speed, aperture, gain or binning can be easily remote controlled via the software and adapted to changing lighting conditions.

Further ITS applications

A new generation of digital cameras which have been specially developed for outdoor applications such as traffic monitoring is now available. The Prosilica GT from Allied Vision Technologies provides a series of functions with which ITS system developers can optimise the performance and reliability of their traffic monitoring systems. The camera models are equipped with the latest Sony and Kodak sensors, which combine high resolution with rapid imaging rates. This enables several images of the same number plate to be recorded in order to reduce the error rate. With the adjustable I/O port the image detection can be synchronised with further system components. The triggering characteristics enable precise triggering and thanks to the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol Standard, several components in the network can be synchronised. In addition, the Prosilica GT can adapt the lens settings to changing lighting conditions with its motorised lens control.