The new bus and minibus taxi (BMT) lane on the N2, which went live on 1 August for exclusive use by these vehicles between 5.30 and 9.00 a.m., is using sophisticated locally developed technology and engineering for monitoring, management and law enforcement.
High definition CCTV cameras and a sophisticated automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system is being used for the first time in South Africa to deliver images of the vehicles using the BMT lane as well as their number plates, back to a central observation and control room fitted with state-of-the-art flat screen digital monitoring equipment.
The N2 BMT lane project is an initiative of the Western Cape Provincial Government and the City of Cape Town. With close to 1,4 million vehicles on the roads in the province, the BMT lane is one of the first projects aimed at improving peak-hour traffic flow.
Dr Bennie Coetzer, managing director of Protoclea Advanced Image Engineering, which supplied the cameras, the ANPR system and associated intelligent video surveillance (IVS) technology, says 18 cameras have been placed to cover the 12 km of N2 highway pilot BMT scheme from Borcherd's Quarry to the M5 on the city-bound section of the highway. The cameras will record the number plate and the relative position of any vehicle other than buses and mini-bus taxis, using the BMT lane.
"Our technology accurately reads and records the number plates of any vehicles that are not supposed to be in the BMT lane between 5.30 and 9.00 a.m., digitally compares them against the provincial registration database and flags them for collation into a list. The list is checked and passed on to a police officer who verifies that an offence has been committed and approves the issuing of postal fines."
Dr Coetzer adds that the cameras and software are specially designed to produce clear images at speed using intelligent video surveillance (IVS) software so that number plate details are legibly recorded.
"The images are currently transmitted into a central observation and control room at N1 City. In future a Protoclea traffic management support system, known as Argus, will be commissioned to integrate all cameras, IVS software functionality and other sensors on the N2 into a single platform and further automate the process.
"Such a network-centric system will be able to monitor, among other aspects of road use, traffic flow speed, individual vehicle speed, average speed between two points, irresponsible or reckless driving, overloaded vehicles, excessive exhaust emissions and non-traffic objects moving onto the road such as people or animals."
Protoclea was contracted to provide the cameras, ANPR system, IVS software and other technology for the project by Sitronix Cape, the system installers. Consulting engineers for the project are Transport Telematics Africa of Cape Town.
For details contact Protoclea Advanced Image Engineering, +27 (0)11 465 4312, [email protected], www.protoclea.com
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