BBC News : Congestion charges face legal challenge

[Peter Tomlinson]

I have been told that the Trafficmaster camera numberplate recognition
systems are required to reduce the numberplate to only 3 characters selected
from the middle of the 'number'. This provides sufficient matches further
down the road to be able to calculate speed, but makes the actual vehicles
unidentifiable.

Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alison Wheeler" <crypto@alisonwheeler.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 8:35 PM
Subject: RE: BBC News : Congestion charges face legal challenge


--- snip ---
> automatic / remote for taxis in my experience ...
>
> An additional camera that people haven't discussed btw. is the
trafficmaster
> 'blue post' cameras on most trunk routes which, AIUI, 'read' the licence
> plate info of every vehicle into a database then searches for where it was
> last seen and calculate speed of traffic. ISTR that they said (when it was
> introduced) that they couldn't (wouldn't?) inspect the database manually
to
> track or locate a specific vehicle.
>