Gloucestershire Constabulary has received nearly £175k of funding from The Road Safety Trust for a project to improve the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology.
The force says the technology, which reads vehicle registration plates, lies at the heart of collaborative efforts to “effectively and efficiently police the UK road network”.
The project, backed by £171.8k of funding, will design and test interventions that improve ANPR capability, in a bid to tackle criminal and anti-social behaviour linked to road use.
This, in turn, will increase the value that the technology delivers in terms of reducing road risk and harm.
Detective supt Paul Keasey, Gloucestershire Constabulary, said: “ANPR technology lies at the heart of collaborative efforts to effectively and efficiently ‘police’ the UK road network, allowing for offending drivers and riders to be identified and dealt with.
“It is important that we maximise the legitimacy, fairness and use of the technology to ensure the safety of all road users.
“I am thrilled at the opportunity to lead this important research project that will design and test interventions that improve ANPR capability.
“Working alongside Dr Adam Snow from Liverpool John Moore University to provide academic rigour, we will ensure that the results are appropriately disseminated across the ANPR community so that effective innovative practice can be implemented at scale to maximise the operational benefit that this valuable law enforcement capability can deliver.”
The Road Safety Trust says the project will benefit road safety by ‘delivering accountability for offending road use that would otherwise have evaded detection, and by providing opportunities to educate or prosecute those that pose a danger to other road users’.
Sally Lines, chief executive of The Road Safety Trust, said: “We really welcome the project from Gloucestershire Police as it has a clear link to how technology can be used to improve road safety and in turn help us work towards our vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on UK roads.”
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