Which technology is used to recognize vehicle license plates for counting, tolling, or traffic violation purposes?

Which technology is used to recognize vehicle license plates for counting, tolling, or traffic violation purposes?

• A. Video analytics
• B. OCR
• C. LiDAR
• D. RADAR

Answer: (B)

Reading text from images is what OCR does. In license plate scenarios, a camera images a passing vehicle, the plate region is located, and OCR interprets the alphanumeric characters on the plate as text. That text can then be used to count vehicles, bill tolls, or identify violations. OCR is specifically designed to convert image-based characters into usable data, which is exactly what’s needed for reading license plates. Other technologies play different roles: video analytics can count and track vehicles but doesn’t inherently extract the plate number; LiDAR and RADAR measure distance or speed and aren’t used to read plate text.

Reading text from images is what OCR does. In license plate scenarios, a camera images a passing vehicle, the plate region is located, and OCR interprets the alphanumeric characters on the plate as text. That text can then be used to count vehicles, bill tolls, or identify violations. OCR is specifically designed to convert image-based characters into usable data, which is exactly what’s needed for reading license plates. Other technologies play different roles: video analytics can count and track vehicles but doesn’t inherently extract the plate number; LiDAR and RADAR measure distance or speed and aren’t used to read plate text.