Successful ANPR operation in Bridgend
The Neighbourhood Policing Teams in Litchard and Brackla have been running a special operation targeting illegal motorists in the area. Last week (January 20th) local police officers and PCSOs were joined by members of the Roads Policing Unit to stage an ANPR exercise which resulted in a number of significant successes.
Building upon the positive results of previous operations in other areas of the town neighbourhood police teams were on hand to patrol the Litchard, Brackla and surrounding areas in Police Traffic Vehicles looking for illegal drivers and illegally used or defective vehicles.
The operation, which was named Operation Bungle, resulted in the seizure of five vehicles, two arrests and six fixed penalty notices. Four Vehicle Defect Rectification Notices were issued and 19 other Road Traffic related documents were also issued to drivers.
PCSO Karen Powell of the Litchard and Pendre Neighbourhood Policing Team said: “Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology uses optical character recognition on images to read the number plates on vehicles. The system can scan number plates at around one per second on cars traveling up to 100 mph. They can use existing closed-circuit television or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task.
“They are used by various police forces and as a method of electronic toll collection on pay-per-use roads and monitoring traffic activity, such as red light adherence at junctions.
“ANPR can also be used to store the images captured by the cameras as well as the text from the number plate, with some configurable to store a photograph of the driver. Systems commonly use infrared lighting to allow the camera to take the picture at any time of the day. A powerful flash is included in at least one version of the intersection-monitoring cameras, serving both to illuminate the picture and to make the offender aware of his or her mistake.
“Our thanks go out to the ANPR team who always give us a warm welcome. We will be looking to hold further operations throughout the area in the future in an effort to keeping our roads safe and free of criminality. “
The next PACT meeting in Litchard is on Thursday January 28 at the Coity Higher Community Centre starting at 6.00pm.
The first Brackla PACT Meeting of 2010 is also on the same day and will be held at Brackla Primary School starting at 6.30pm.