Enhanced Surveillance: Developing a Computer Vision-based CCTV Footage Analysis Tool for Improved Vehicle Number Plate Recognition

Abstract

Abstract: Smart parking systems serve as integral components in augmenting the efficiency and sustainability of modern urban environments. Nonetheless, prevailing systems predominantly rely on sensors to monitor parking space occupancy, entailing substantial installation and maintenance costs while offering limited functionality in tracking vehicle movement within parking lots. To confront these challenges head-on, our solution introduces a multistage learning-based approach, capitalizing on the existing surveillance infrastructure within parking facilities and a meticulously curated dataset of Saudi license plates. Our approach amalgamates YOLOv5 for license plate detection, YOLOv8 for character detection, and a novel convolutional neural network architecture tailored for enhanced character recognition. We illustrate the superiority of our approach over single-stage methods, achieving an impressive overall accuracy of 96.1%, a notable advancement from the 83.9% accuracy of single-stage approaches. Furthermore, our solution seamlessly integrates into a web-based dashboard, facilitating real-time visualization and statistical analysis of parking space occupancy and vehicle movement, all accomplished with commendable time efficiency. This endeavor underscores the potential of leveraging existing technological resources to bolster the operational efficiency and environmental sustainability of smart cities. By harnessing the power of machine learning and computer vision, our work exemplifies a paradigm shift towards smarter and more adaptive urban infrastructure