Are the e-toll gantries cameras accurate (without e-tag)?

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skimread

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There is an opinion piece here that says they aren't.

Want to know the real reason SANRAL wants people to sign up for eTags, and charges more for those who don’t? Because its cameras suck aren’t reliable.

I’ve been chatting to people for the last week and gathering lots of confirmed reports that the eToll billing system is prone to inaccuracies. And from what I’ve seen so far, the inaccuracies only go one way: those who have been using the eToll roads without eTags have not been billed for all the gantries they have passed through.

People opposed to eTolls might find this to be good news. Not only is the system they’re opposing not working properly, but their accumulated eToll charges will also be less than anticipated. Perhaps it’ll even be grounds for another legal challenge next year. Certainly it makes a bit of a mockery of the cost and obnoxious appearance of the purple-lit gantries: one staffer in the htxt.africa office has an account on the SANRAL website, though not an eTag, and confirms that his account only shows seven charges, despite passing under at least ten toll gantries since the system went live on the 3rd of December.

And as I say, I’ve spoken to others who also believe that their cars have passed through the gantries unbilled.

These inconsistencies can not have been unexpected, at least not to SANRAL. Kapsch, the company that provides the equipment and software for the e-Toll, doesn’t publish figures for the accuracy of its optical character recognition (OCR) system. This is system that “reads” number plates and turns the image of XYZ123-GP into text that can be read. The most accurate OCR is said to be 98% effective, in ideal conditions. The highways of Gauteng are hardly ideal conditions, though. Cars travelling at different speeds; number plates displayed at different heights and angles; various types of number plates; dirt and grime; weather; water spray from the rain; lighting conditions – these are all things that affect the accuracy of an image recognition system. The two ANPR cameras listed on the Kapsch website might be high-quality items, but image sensors of just 1.3-megapixels and 1.4-megapixels show up their limitations.

All of this adds up to give a real-world accuracy, for ANPR systems, of around 90 – 94%. Another study at the University of Hertfordshire, in the UK, did in-depth analysis on the accuracy of ANPR system and found that the system often misreads certain letters, and also misreads letters that are in certain positions on the number plate. Failure rates – where a letter is misread – were as high as 34%.

There are ways around this. We know that SANRAL’s eToll gantries take multiple photos, from multiple angles. If the first shot fails the second could still be a success. And if there’s an invalid hit – and this is just speculation, based on how we guess such a system should work – the system could flag it up for manual review.

That right there – a manual review – could be one reason that fees for non-tagged cars are higher. Presumably, if such a system is in place, SANRAL would have to pay somebody to manually review those invalid hits. Then there’s the processing of those non-tagged accounts, sending bills, collecting payments, and so on.

It could also be argued that SANRAL is charging non-tagged users more because its cameras won’t pick up every time a non-tagged car drives under a gantry. You might get missed by this gantry, but you’re still paying double the price a tag user pays, so it kind of balances out. Basically, the fees could be higher because even with 90% accuracy, getting twice the money is better than getting half the money at 100% accuracy.

Finally, it all points to why eTags are being pushed so heavily. Yes, in a world where people completely agree to the eToll system and unconditionally trust the government, the eTag system would be fantastic. Convenient, easy to pay, and fast.

But right now it’s the only way SANRAL can guarantee a 100% hit rate for cars that drive through the toll gates. The cameras aren’t accurate, and the eTag never fails (or at least, we haven’t proved that it does yet).
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Why do some people insist on abusing the grave accent (`) when what they intend to use is an apostrophe (')? :mad:

Either way, too much speculation and not enough fact.

If people struggle to fool a speed camera, I really doubt that a two-shot system is going to have a high chance of missing.

Blame the administration issues surrounding it for the delay in being billed.
 
Remember, if the ANPR fails, they have manual verification (read- human) to fall back on.
The only completely sure way is to either cover your entire numberplate, or get a fake one.
 
I was on the n1, n3 and n12 on Tuesday and it pored with rain the whole time. According to the sanral calculator it should have cost R45 but I was only charged R26. :whistle:
 
The systems are trained extensively (since it uses AI) to recognise plates from different angles and sides. NPR has come a long way since it started out and they're honestly pretty effective now.

There are otherwise only two reasons why plates may not be read correctly, in other words not billed - rain has an obvious effect on the recognition of the plates. It's a major problem and this is why the e-tags are useful in this regard.
Numberplates being obscured. If a character is obscured it's not going to be read accurately, if at all. It could for this reason, be unable to be recognised by a human either, whether by a process of elimination or with 100% accuracy.

Kapsch uses 2MP cameras which are quite standard (this is 1920x1080), with a lens on the camera so they can zoom into a certain frame without losing resolution.
 
or maybe they have 20 employees looking at a backlog of 10 million photo's manually. So you will get your bill in a few years time.
 
I have an e-Tag and I went through the gantry past the John Voster on ramp on the N1 South towards JHB. My e-Tag never beeped so now we have to consider the downtime that will cost SANRAL millions each day. Think of all those people going from PTA to DBN this week... all those people crossing under that gantry and not being charged. :)
 
killerbyte said:
I have an e-Tag and I went through the gantry past the John Voster on ramp on the N1 South towards JHB. My e-Tag never beeped so now we have to consider the downtime that will cost SANRAL millions each day. Think of all those people going from PTA to DBN this week... all those people crossing under that gantry and not being charged. :)
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You're part of the problem. Not the solution. :mad:
 
Drove through 6-8 over the weekend. Middle finger was up for each of them.
 
Tander said:
You're part of the problem. Not the solution. :mad:
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No Sir, rather I am utilising my freedom of choice to pay for them just like its your right to not. I don't like the eTolls but honestly I have enough **** in my life that I would rather pay the discounted fee of R180 pm that it will cost me rather than the R400 it would cost me without the discount. I will continue to fight and I will donate money to Outa and I will vote DA in an effort to fight it but this is called hedging my bets, and as I have said I have the right to do so.
 
killerbyte said:
I have an e-Tag and I went through the gantry past the John Voster on ramp on the N1 South towards JHB. My e-Tag never beeped so now we have to consider the downtime that will cost SANRAL millions each day. Think of all those people going from PTA to DBN this week... all those people crossing under that gantry and not being charged. :)
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All those people will be paying VLN rate, not eTag rate. So, sucks to be you. SANRAL disclaims all liability for claims arising from non-reading of tags by the readers.

Here:

Vaseline-150x150.jpg
 
Lycanthrope said:
Why do some people insist on abusing the grave accent (`) when what they intend to use is an apostrophe (')? :mad:

Either way, too much speculation and not enough fact.

If people struggle to fool a speed camera, I really doubt that a two-shot system is going to have a high chance of missing.

Blame the administration issues surrounding it for the delay in being billed.
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Check your settings, as it doesn't angle towards you like a grave - it angles away, and that probably has something to do with the C&P

EDIT: - Just checked the original article and the apostrophes are correct, so it's all to do with C&P. :)
 
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The ANPR used in the system is pretty good actually. But it definitely does have instances where the confidence is low, and in those instances the images go through MNPR. The cool thing about MNPR transactions is that they're written off before you get a Final invoice, the one that's sent to you just before you're handed over for prosecution.

And the only reason they're so insistent on people getting e-tags is because their primary source of information (e-Natis) has such crap data that they need you to hand over your info willingly to get accurate info. So if you've registered for an e-tag or on their website then sorry for you, they own you now.
 
killerbyte said:
No Sir, rather I am utilising my freedom of choice to pay for them just like its your right to not. I don't like the eTolls but honestly I have enough **** in my life that I would rather pay the discounted fee of R180 pm that it will cost me rather than the R400 it would cost me without the discount. I will continue to fight and I will donate money to Outa and I will vote DA in an effort to fight it but this is called hedging my bets, and as I have said I have the right to do so.
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or you could just pay nothing at all...

I love it how people say getting tagged is cheaper, when the alternative is free.
 
killerbyte said:
I have an e-Tag and I went through the gantry past the John Voster on ramp on the N1 South towards JHB. My e-Tag never beeped so now we have to consider the downtime that will cost SANRAL millions each day. Think of all those people going from PTA to DBN this week... all those people crossing under that gantry and not being charged. :)
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Consider this, your e-tag didnt beep, and they picked up your plate and will charge you for the higher rate. Check mate, mate
 
I had covered up an M on my plates...both front and back.
I had also removed my license disk on the windscreen.

After two days, the website had updated with my correct transactions.
I think their manual verification process is good, however they do it
 
Disc is irrelevant. It's a 2mp camera. There is no way they can make out the details
 
Mzala said:
I had covered up an M on my plates...both front and back.
I had also removed my license disk on the windscreen.

After two days, the website had updated with my correct transactions.
I think their manual verification process is good, however they do it
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They must use your make,model and colour so it doesn't matter if one letter is missing.
 
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