August 2012: AAMVA Publishes Best Practices Guide for Improving ALPR Effectiveness through Uniform License Plate Design and Manufacture
/ALPRBestPractice%20cover.jpg?n=8442 "ALPR Best Practice (cover)")
Since their inception more than a century ago, the license plate has primarily been used to display information for fast and accurate identification of a motor vehicle and to demonstrate compliance with motor vehicle registration laws.
Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) provide law enforcement with the ability to check license plates against various databases. Inconsistent business rules utilized by the entities who issue license plates result in “misreads”, diminishing law enforcement’s ability to identify and apprehend suspected criminals or terrorists, recover stolen vehicles, or assist people in need of assistance. In addition, these inconsistencies hamper Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) ability to correctly identify vehicles crossing international borders. As a result, in April 2011 AAMVA created the ALPR Working Group. The Working Group has completed its work and AAMVA is now pleased to publish the Best Practices Guide for Improving Automated License Plate Reader Effectiveness through Uniform License Plate Design and Manufacture.
The purpose of this guide is to identify best practices in license plate design, manufacture and issuance to aid jurisdictions in creating and issuing license plates best suited to vehicle identification. License plates serve a common purpose across jurisdictions, so they should also share common characteristics that allow readability, usability, and connections to vehicle registration records.
Download the ALPR Best Practice Guide.
New Development (October 2012)
In October 2012 the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) voted on and passed a Resolution titled “Validating the Public Safety and Homeland Security Needs for Retro-Reflective Front and Rear License Plates”. This Resolution closes by supporting “the use of the Best Practice Guide for Improving Automated License Plate Reader Effectiveness through Uniform License Plate Design and Manufacture published by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators”.
The complete Resolution can be found on the IACP Web site here.
License Plate Configuration Design Booklet (Released February 2012)
The ALPR Working Group has completed compiling a License Plate Configuration Design Booklet that highlights the responses from the Jurisdictions that participated in the working group survey. This Booklet has four parts: Part I covers License Plate Length, Repeats & Record Retrieval; Part II covers Stacked Characters; Part III covers Use of Non-Alpha/Numeric Characters; and Part IV contains License Plate image examples.
This is one of two deliverables required by the Statement of Work between AAMVA and Customs and Border Protection (the funding agency). The second deliverable, a document titled “A Best Practice Guide for Improving ALPR Effectiveness through Uniform License Plate Design and Manufacture” is currently under development and is scheduled to be published in October 2012.
Download the "License Plate Configuration Design Booklet"