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The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region |
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Project: |
Implementation of Trip Ticket System |
Year: |
2004-2006 |
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Product: |
VECON-VIS |
Industry: |
Government |
| THE CLIENT |
The Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) is of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region which is responsible for developing high quality new towns and strategic growth areas to meet Hong Kong’s development need. They also have the responsibility of implementing and maintaining high quality public works projects including port development, land formation, landslip preventive measures and environmental improvement measures and maintaining Hong Kong ‘s leading role in setting international standards for slope safety. Its Fill Management Division manages the public fill service and operations of public fill reception facilities and construction waste sorting facilities in Hong Kong.
| THE CHALLENGE |
In 2005, the total quantity of public fill generated reached 19.1 million tonnes. With the aim of avoiding the illegal dumping of public fill, the Government promulgated the policy to implement a Trip Ticket System in public works contracts in 1999 for proper disposal of public fill at public fill reception facilities or landfills by the construction material producers. The system has been enhanced with the use of bar-coded Disposal Delivery Form (DDF) in late 2004 and later integrated with the construction waste disposal charging system.
The new trip ticket system is required to perform and complete all the data collection, verification and validation for a public fill disposal transaction In-lane or Out-lane at the gates of the facility within 15 seconds. It also provides interface to other key database systems so as to handle information of at least 100,000 registered vehicles and at least 500,000 Chit-based System accounts (for Charging System), etc. Managed by the CEDD, 4 public fill reception facilities are currently being operated in Tuen Mun, Tseung Kwan O, Quarry Bay, and Mui Wo handling a daily average of approximate 2,400 garbage trucks traffic.
| THE SOLUTION |
To cater for the system’s requirements by the CEDD, Asia Vision Technology Limited (AVT) has developed and implemented a total of 4 Trip Ticket Systems (TTS) in 4 designated public fill reception facilities in Hong Kong in September 2004. Amongst these facilities are Tuen Mun Area 38 Fill Bank, Tseung Kwan O Area 137 Fill Bank, Quarry Bay Temporary Public Filling Barging Point and Mui Wo Temporary Public Fill Reception Facility. As a total solution provider, AVT also provides system design, implementation, deployment, training and maintenance services as well as system integration with various database systems and hardware.
While the gate operator scans the bar codes of the trip ticket and chit, the system automatically recorded the In-weight of the truck loading public fill at weighbridge and connected to various database systems in the TTS system to conduct validation of dumping license, DDF and the status of Chit Account and Vehicle Registration Mark(VRM) Account, etc. The new TTS system is an integrated system consisting of a set of key modules for processing and completing a public fill disposal transaction in the facilities. As one of core modules of the TTS System, AVT implemented its flagship product VECON-VIS; the License Plate Number Recognition System developed by its U.S. patented VECON-OCR Technology. The VECON-VIS automatically detects, tracks and records the license plate number of garbage trucks arriving In-lane and leaving Out-lane at the gates of the public fill reception facility with valid trip tickets (for TTS) and chits (for Charging System).
Within a few seconds upon the completion of the validations, the garbage truck can immediately proceed into the facility for dumping. In the end of transaction when the truck exits to the Out-lane with empty load, the system automatically records the Out-weight, recognizes and verifies the license plate number of the garbage truck and generates a report in the system for proper payment collection from the respective contractors.
| Highlights of VECON-VIS |
| A proven license plate number recognition (LPN) system enabling and recognizing: | ||
| At least 95% accuracy rate of license plate numbers within 0.5 seconds | ||
| Moving and stationary vehicles | ||
| Alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric license plates | ||
| Multi-country, multi-language license plates | ||
| Chinese(traditional/simplified), English, Korean, Japanese, Thai. | ||
| User-definable interface and modes of operation | ||
| Integration to third-party systems and databases | ||
| THE RESULT |
Equipped with AVT’s License Plate Recognition System (VECON-VIS), the implementation of the CEDD’s Trip Ticketing System in the public fill reception facilities automates the process of public fill disposal transactions and makes the operations of the facilities more streamline. It reduces the processing time of the public fill disposal transactions and shortens the long queues of dumping vehicles at the facilities. It also helps alleviate human errors and delays by the operators, improves the process of validating dumping licenses on-site. As a result, CEDD achieves effective management and greater operational efficiency of its public fill reception facilities.