IBM Case Study: The City of Stockholm

Stockholm wanted to reduce both the number of traffic jams in the city and the municipality's air pollution levels. Road-use charging systems must demonstrate a high degree of accuracy. An inefficient system costs the city funds it would otherwise have earned from tolls. Incorrect billings also cause bad feelings among residents. Understanding this, the IBM Global Business Services team called upon IBM Research to help boost the accuracy of the automated license plate recognition system. IBM researchers delivered an OCR engine that significantly increased the number of license plates automatically identified in good weather - with still greater improvement anticipated during bad weather. This translates directly to a significant reduction in manual data entry costs.