Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) project

A dataset providing information of the vehicle types and counts in several locations in Leeds.

Purpose of the project

The aim of this work was to examine the profile of vehicle types in Leeds, in order to compare local emissions with national predictions.

Traffic was monitored for a period of one week at two Inner Ring Road locations in April 2016 and at seven sites around the city in June 2016. The vehicle registration data was then sent to the Department for Transport (Dft), who combined it with their vehicle type data, replacing the registration number with an anonymised ‘Unique ID’.

The data is provided in three folders:-

• Raw Data – contains the data in the format it was received, and a sample of each format.
• Processed Data – the data after processing by LCC, lookup tables, and sample data.
• Outputs – Excel spreadsheets summarising the data for each site, for various time/dates.

Initially a dataset was received for the Inner Ring Road (see file “IRR ANPR matched to DFT vehicle type list.csv”), with vehicle details, but with missing / uncertain data on the vehicles emissions Eurostandard class. Of the 820,809 recorded journeys, from the pseudo registration number field (UniqueID) it was determined that there were 229,891 unique vehicles, and 31,912 unique “vehicle types” based on the unique concatenated vehicle description fields.

It was therefore decided to import the data into an MS Access database, create a table of vehicle types, and to add the necessary fields/data so that combined with the year of manufacture / vehicle registration, the appropriate Eurostandard could be determined for the particular vehicle.

The criteria for the Eurostandards was derived mainly from www.dieselnet.com and summarised in a spreadsheet (“EuroStandards.xlsx”). Vehicle types were assigned to a “VehicleClass” (see “Lookup Tables.xlsx”) and “EU class” with additional fields being added for any modified data (Gross Vehicle Weight – “GVM_Mod”; Engine capacity – “EngineCC_mod”; No of passenger seats – “PassSeats”; and Kerb weight – “KerbWt”). Missing data was added from the internet lookups, extrapolation from known data, and by association – eg 99% of cars with an engine size

Additional data was then received from the Inner Ring Road site, giving journey date/time and incorporating the Taxi data for licensed taxis in Leeds.

Similar data for Sites 1-7 was also then received, and processed to determine the “VehicleClass” and “EU class”.

A mixture of Update queries, and VBA processing was then used to provide the Level 1-6 breakdown of vehicle types (see “Lookup Tables.xlsx”). The data was then combined into one database, so that the required Excel spreadsheets could be exported for the required time/date periods (see “outputs” folder).