- Apr 15, 2024
Introducing Polus, our innovative system which significantly helps to reduce instances of mis-detection.
At Creative Car Park we strive to operate in a fair and ethical manner, only issuing parking charges when we believe there is misuse, to ensure your genuine car park users are not penalised.
This aim is reflected in our best-in-class appeals process results from POPLA, the UK’s independent appeals service for Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) issued on private land. Our charge upheld rates lead the industry, with the highest upheld rates of appeal cases submitted by motorists. In short – we get it right.
But we also recognise that sometimes mistakes can be made when it comes to identifying potential parking violations. Our automatic detection system relies on high-quality images for accurate and efficient performance, but very occasionally low-light conditions (at night or during bad weather, for example), coupled with moving vehicles, may result in number plate recognition errors.
To address this issue, we have invested in new software designed in collaboration with our IT team and external partners. We call it Polus and now, after nine months of development, it is live across all our sites.
The power of our new Polus system
Polus is built using modern Microsoft Azure cloud-based technologies and utilises artificial intelligence to automatically analyse more than 100,000 images every two hours.
Here’s how AI drives our Polus system:
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1. The number plate image from our ANPR camera is converted to black and white.
2. Algorithms are utilised to increase the size of the image by 300%.
3. Non-essential elements are removed from the image at a pixel level.
4. The image is smoothed, and the size of the number plate object is further increased in size.
5. The enhanced image is now processed by Polus, with our analysis team on standby to manually review any issues.
Using AI to enhance every image in this manner has further improved our number plate recognition rates, helping to support our commitment to “get it right” for our clients and the motorists who use their car parks.
Technology plays a central role in everything we do here at Creative Car Park and the introduction of Polus underlines our commitment to innovation and the crucial role it plays in ensuring we always operate as fairly as possible.
If you’d like to find out more about our car park management solutions, powered by Polus, click here to get in touch with one of our team.