Gloucestershire Constabulary has announced it’s received £171,000 funding from The Road Safety Trust to conduct research to understand and overcome any perceived limitations of current Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology.
The Road Safety Trust is committed to achieving zero deaths and serious injuries on UK roads and has funded more than £1 million to eight organisations across the UK for technology-focussed road safety projects.
The Gloucestershire Constabulary Project is to more effectively tackle criminal and anti-social behaviour linked to road use by improving ANPR capability and increasing the value that the technology delivers in terms of reducing road risk and harm. It is hoped that the Project outcomes will generate nationally and internationally scalable responses.
The Project has clear pathways to securing benefit to road safety by delivering accountability for offending road use that would otherwise have evaded detection, and by providing opportunities to educate or prosecute those that pose a danger to other road users.
Detective Superintendent Paul Keasey at Gloucestershire Constabulary said, “ANPR technology lies at the heart of collaborative efforts to effectively and efficiently ‘police’ the UK road network, allowing for offending drivers and riders to be identified and dealt with. It is important that we maximise the legitimacy, fairness and use of the technology to ensure the safety of all road users.
“I am thrilled at the opportunity to lead this important research Project that will design and test interventions that improve ANPR capability. Working alongside Dr Adam Snow from Liverpool John Moore University to provide academic rigour, we will ensure that the results are appropriately disseminated across the ANPR community so that effective innovative practice can be implemented at scale to maximise the operational benefit that this valuable law enforcement capability can deliver.”
Sally Lines, Chief Executive of The Road Safety Trust added, “We really welcome the project from Gloucestershire Police as it has a clear link to how technology can be used to improve road safety and in turn help us work towards our vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on UK roads.”
(Picture – Gloucestershire Police)
