By Natasha Lomas, 26 February 2008 17:31
NEWS
A company that has developed a CCTV system which counts people in cars by detecting human skin claims the London Congestion Charge could benefit from the technology.
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Vehicle Occupancy, a company spun out of research at Loughborough University, has pioneered an infrared CCTV system known as dtech that scans car windscreens and determines how many people are in the vehicle by detecting human skin and counting faces.
It is now touting a commercial application of the tech that can be used for policing high occupancy vehicle lanes - roads where cars must have more than one occupant in them - and therefore cutting congestion.
Leeds City Council is reported to be interested in testing the technology on its car-pool lanes.
Professor John Tyrer, professor of optical instrumentation at Loughborough University, said single occupant cars are the main cause of congestion and argued that more intelligent schemes than London's Congestion Charge - which polices vehicles rather than occupants - are needed to create effective congestion-cutting schemes.
He told silicon.com: "At the moment the Congestion Charge in London is not at all successful - the average speed in that zone has gone down since the charge was introduced. It's changed the demographic distribution slightly but the net result is it's not made a big deal of difference. And it's not seen by the people in there as actually anything other than a flat tax.
"So if you charge a single occupant car but you don't charge multiple occupant cars you've then got a logic which says I've got to change my behaviour because I can begin to see the reason behind this."
Vehicle Occupancy has conducted extensive trials of the technology during the five years it has been developing dtech - including utilising the Mallory Park Motor Racing Circuit near Leicester.
Tyrer explained: "We're able to position people in different configurations in the car and then go round and round and round at different speeds - it's very, very controlled conditions. We're able to map everything and look at the repeatability."
The dtech cameras are elevated so they have a three-quarter vantage point of vehicles on the road and are therefore able to get a view of any front and rear passengers, said Tyrer - who added the technology is "very" accurate.
He said many UK councils have shown interest in using dtech to police vehicle occupancy, adding it is already in use "all over the world".
dtech has additional applications beyond policing congestion, according to Tyrer, who said as well as car parking and tolling the tech can be used for people auditing, survey work and border crossing.
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. Ian Sargent
If it counts faces how does it cope with people who wear hats or large sunglasses? And does it detect the baby in the child seat?
If it fails on either of those two points then it's useless for a congestion charge application.
2. Karen Challinor
and how do you appeal against the fine ?
say for example you are going to a party and your passengers are wearing masks, the system fails to see them and you get a fine in the post
or your passenger isn't sitting upright but is hunched down putting a CD into the player at the time of the measurement, you get a fine in the post
or your passenger is turned around telling the small children in the back to be quiet so the back of their head is scanned, you get a fine in the post
or your passenger is reading a paper which obscures their face, you get a fine in the post
or your passenger is reading a map...
I could go on, but I'd like the question answered sometime
3. Richard
"How does it count faces..."
So, (two-faced) politicians escape fines?
Nice, as they've made the UK a world-centre for surveillance & snooping.
4. Sarah
Lets forget all this and make it easy for our government by instroducing legislation so that we all have to be chipped. Then they won't need to spend so much money on this technology.
Don't worry, I am joking!
How much more are is the motorist (aka the government cash cow) expected to take?