EFFECTIVENESS OF LICENCE PLATE RECOGNITION BASED JOURNEY TIME MONITORING IN THE DEMANDING NORDIC ENVIRONMENT

The Uusimaa Region of the Finnish National Road Administration has been running a licence plate based journey time monitoring system since mid-1999. The system has been used plainly for traffic monitoring purposes. No information has yet been presented directly back to road users. Experience has shown that a real-time link-based journey time information reflects the network status and gives information on journey times previously not available to the traffic monitoring purposes. After successful studies on the pilot system, the Hame region of Finnra decided to install a similar system on a main route from Southern Finland northbound, the Highway 4 to inform road users on journey times. A computer vision based system has its downfalls and the demanding environment in Finland certainly does not make things any easier. Trying to minimise the maintenance especially during winter has been a key issue to be solved. For the covering abstract see ITRD E114174.