Number-plate recognition and examination of requirements for public Romanian roads usage

Abstract

The increasing number of cars brings upon itself the need of rapidly check the lawfulness of the drivers. When travelling, there are several legal obligations a driver have to fulfill according to the law. In Romania, the authorities enforce the presence of legal documents such vignette, RCA (civil liability) and PTI/ITP (periodical technical inspection) when being subject to a routine control. This article aims to present a solution to ease the process of verification through a software solution which identifies the number-plate and then verifies in a unified database the availability of the above-mentioned legal documents. This solution is implemented in Matlab, using correlation factor between the identified number-plate and a set of characters (the alphabet) to determine the letters from the plate number. The program is connected to a database in which are saved the details (vignette, RCA, PTI) of the identified number, this being used by the authorities to verify the validity of the drivers' documents.