Automatic license plate recognition method and system

The invention discloses an automatic license plate recognition method and an automatic license plate recognition system. The system comprises a high-resolution camera (300), a detection and tracking module (312), a hazardous event detection module (316), an image extraction module (322) and a license plate recognition module (324), wherein the high-resolution camera (300) is used for acquiring a video image of a traffic scene; the detection and tracking module (312) is used for detecting and tracking a vehicle in the video image; the hazardous event detection module (316) is used for judging whether the tracked vehicle causes a hazardous event or not according to a set traffic event alarm rule; the image extraction module (322) is used for extracting a video image of the vehicle when the hazardous event detection module (316) judges the occurrence of the hazardous event of the vehicle; and the license plate recognition module (324) is used for detecting and recognizing the license plate of a traffic violation vehicle in the video image of the vehicle. The automatic license plate recognition method and the automatic license plate recognition system can be applied to more complex traffic scenes; simultaneously, the types of recognizable traffic violation events of traffic vehicles are expanded greatly.