A new partnership between specialist system and outsourcing services company Civica Group Ltd, and hardware manufacturer TETRAtab is hoping to deliver a practical option for deploying automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology in general beat patrol and response vehicles.

To counter the cost prohibitive nature of installing multiple units across a force fleet, which has restricted the deployment of ANPR to a small number of specialist vehicles within forces across the UK, the partnership has developed a mobile ANPR for use on demountable rugged computer systems.

The CIVICA/TETRAtab system is not designed to replace full ANPR multi-camera systems currently deployed on specialist ANPR patrol units. These types of vehicles have sophisticated ‘multi-lane’ and bad weather/nigh-time facilities – and are usually targeted as highly ‘pro-active’ patrol units.

The CIVICA/TETRAtab system is designed specifically for more ‘routine’ beat patrol units – where the primary function is not to deliver ANPR patrolling – instead, the system is designed to provide occasional ‘proactive’ HITS, but mainly an ability to constantly gather ANPR intelligence information throughout the whole tour of duty of a routine beat patrol.