Argentina has inaugurated the first intelligent free-flow tolling, non-stop car transit system on the ILLIA road. The complex project has been a great success with tangible benefits for the community in solving a significant social problem in the Buenos Aires area: traffic congestion.
On the highway connecting the cities of Buenos Aires and the CABA county, managed by Autopistas Urbanas S.A. (AUSA), Tattile provided a hi-performance modern toll collection system that charges all highway users according to the distance they have traveled and vehicle class.
The project aimed to supply two automatic toll collection gantries, including all the infrastructures. For the MLFF project, Tattile provides 54 Smart 2HD cameras for the 2 tolling gates covering 11 transit lanes in total. The project also included maintenance, support, monitoring, and periodic software upgrades for two complete lanes.
Smart 2HD cameras have been selected to meet the high requirements of MLFF applications. The cameras guarantee high performance in detecting and recognizing transits, even at high speeds. Smart 2HD is a highly efficient system that ensures accurate and reliable detection. This is achieved through the use of an embedded OCR algorithm, which is capable of reading both reflective and non-reflective license plates. The system can provide detailed information about the vehicle, including OCR and color context images, as well as optical speed evaluation. With the ability to read both reflective and non-reflective license plates, Smart 2HD offers a comprehensive solution for transit management in complex applications. The system is also able to detect and recognize different types of license plates, including those on cars, trucks, and motorbikes.
To have a complete automatic MLFF system and to obtain complete vehicle information, Axle Counter cameras were introduced in the project.
The Axle Counter system is specially designed for tolling applications where vehicles can pass through without stopping. It comes with a dedicated algorithm that can detect the number of axles, the presence of twin wheels, raised axles and allows fast image processing to determine details about the vehicle, such as its speed and other characteristics, at any time of the day or night. Axle Counters detect vehicle axles through image analysis, eliminating the need for road work during the installation or maintenance of external devices.
The combined installation of Smart 2HD and Axle Counter for a free flow tolling system allows complete information about the vehicle. With an easy transit data reconciliation through the most common protocol, it is possible to have in a single view the license plate information, the relative metadata, and the number of vehicle axles.
The system generates the images of the vehicle, coming from the Smart 2HD and from the Axle Counter, together with the configurable set of metadata, offering a cutting-edge solution for modern MLFF applications.
The success of the project can be measured by evaluating some key performance indicators (KPIs) and evaluation criteria that were defined and shared with the customer at the beginning of the project. These KPIs were fully achieved, with a remarkable Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) rate of 99% and a vehicle classification level of above 95%.
