A
- ALPR (Automatic licence plate recognition)
- Automatic licence plate recognition (ALPR) is the name used mainly in North America for the same technology that India, the UK and most of Asia call ANPR: a camera and software that read vehicle plates as text.
- ANPR (Automatic number plate recognition)
- Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) is camera technology that finds a vehicle's number plate in an image and converts the characters into text that software can search, match and store.
- ATCC (Automatic traffic counting and classification)
- Automatic traffic counting and classification (ATCC) is a system that counts every vehicle passing a point on the road and assigns each one a class, such as two-wheeler, car, bus or multi-axle truck.
- ATMS (Advanced traffic management system)
- An advanced traffic management system (ATMS) is the network of cameras, detectors, communication links and command centres that a highway operator uses to monitor traffic, detect incidents and enforce rules along a corridor.
B
- BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards)
- The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is India's national standards body, set up under the BIS Act, 2016, which publishes Indian Standards and runs product certification and registration schemes.
- Boom barrier
- A boom barrier is a motorised arm that blocks a vehicle lane and lifts to let an authorised vehicle through, used at society gates, campuses, parking entries and toll lanes.
E
- e-challan (Electronic challan)
- An e-challan is an electronic traffic fine issued through the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' eChallan system, either by an officer with a handheld device or automatically from camera evidence.
- Edge AI (Edge artificial intelligence)
- Edge AI means running artificial intelligence models on the device that captures the data, such as a camera or a roadside processing unit, instead of sending raw video to a central server or cloud for analysis.
F
- FASTag
- FASTag is India's electronic toll collection tag: a radio frequency identification (RFID) sticker fixed on a vehicle's windscreen that lets the toll amount be deducted from a linked account while the vehicle moves through a plaza.
G
- Global shutter
- A global shutter is an image sensor design that starts and ends the exposure of every pixel at the same moment, so a moving object is captured without the skew that row-by-row readout causes.
H
- HSRP (High security registration plate)
- A high security registration plate (HSRP) is India's standard tamper-resistant number plate, with security features and a third registration mark on the windscreen, designed to make vehicles easier to trace.
I
- IK rating (Impact protection rating)
- An IK rating is a code defined in the international standard IEC 62262 that states how much mechanical impact energy an enclosure can withstand, from IK00 (no protection) to IK10 (20 joules).
- IP rating (Ingress protection rating)
- An IP (ingress protection) rating is a code defined in the international standard IEC 60529 that states how well an enclosure keeps out solid objects and dust (first digit) and water (second digit).
- IR illumination (Infrared illumination)
- IR illumination is infrared light, invisible or nearly invisible to the human eye, that a camera emits to light the scene at night so it can capture plates and vehicles without visible flash.
- IRC (Indian Roads Congress)
- The Indian Roads Congress (IRC) is the professional body of highway engineers in India that publishes codes, standards and guidelines for the design, construction and maintenance of roads and bridges.
- ITMS (Intelligent traffic management system)
- An intelligent traffic management system (ITMS) is a city-scale set of cameras, sensors, traffic signal control and command centre software that monitors junctions and corridors and helps enforce traffic rules.
L
- Lakh and crore (Indian number units)
- A lakh is 100,000 and a crore is 10,000,000 (ten million); these Indian number units appear in tender values, vehicle counts and budgets in India.
- LPR (Licence plate recognition)
- Licence plate recognition (LPR) is a general name for systems that read vehicle registration plates from camera images, used most often for parking, gate access and building security products.
M
- MLFF (Multi-lane free flow tolling)
- Multi-lane free flow (MLFF) tolling is barrier-free toll collection: vehicles pass under a gantry at normal speed, and the toll is charged automatically from their FASTag, with ANPR to identify every vehicle.
- MoRTH (Ministry of Road Transport and Highways)
- The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is the Government of India ministry responsible for national highways, road transport policy and the rules made under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
- MTES (Mobile traffic enforcement system)
- A mobile traffic enforcement system (MTES) puts an enforcement camera, a speed sensor and a processing unit on a patrol or interceptor vehicle, so that violations can be detected and recorded at any location.
N
- NATRAX (National Automotive Test Tracks)
- NATRAX (National Automotive Test Tracks) is a government vehicle testing and proving ground at Pithampur near Indore, Madhya Pradesh, under the Ministry of Heavy Industries.
- NHAI (National Highways Authority of India)
- The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is the statutory authority under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways that develops, maintains and manages national highways entrusted to it.
O
- OCR (Optical character recognition)
- Optical character recognition (OCR) is the process of converting images of letters and numbers into machine-readable text; in ANPR it is the step that reads the characters on a detected number plate.
- ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum)
- ONVIF is an open industry forum that publishes interface specifications so that IP cameras, recorders, access control devices and video software from different manufacturers can work together.
P
- PoE (Power over Ethernet)
- Power over Ethernet (PoE) is a set of IEEE 802.3 standards that carry electrical power and network data over the same twisted-pair Ethernet cable, so a camera needs only one cable.
R
- Radar speed enforcement
- Radar speed enforcement measures vehicle speed with a radar sensor, which sends radio waves and calculates speed from the Doppler shift of the reflection, and pairs each reading with a camera image as evidence.
- RFID vs ANPR
- RFID and ANPR both identify vehicles automatically, but RFID reads a radio tag fixed to the vehicle, while ANPR reads the number plate that every vehicle already carries.
- RLVD (Red light violation detection)
- Red light violation detection (RLVD) is a junction camera system that detects vehicles crossing the stop line while the signal is red and records evidence for a challan.
- Rolling shutter
- A rolling shutter is an image sensor design that exposes and reads out the frame one row at a time, from top to bottom, so different parts of the image are captured at slightly different moments.
- RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol)
- RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) is a network protocol that a video client uses to set up and control live or recorded video streams from an IP camera or server.
S
- SARATHI
- SARATHI is the national application and database for driving licences in India, developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and used by transport offices for learner and permanent licences.
- STQC (Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification)
- STQC (Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification) is a directorate and attached office of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) that provides testing, calibration and certification for electronics and IT products.
V
- VAHAN
- VAHAN is the national vehicle registration application and database used by transport offices across India, developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
- VIDES (Video Incident Detection and Enforcement System)
- VIDES (Video Incident Detection and Enforcement System) is the camera system in NHAI's ATMS Standards and Specifications 2023 that detects incidents and traffic violations on national highways and triggers a response for each one.
- VIDS (Video incident detection system)
- A video incident detection system (VIDS) uses video analytics on roadside cameras to detect incidents such as stalled vehicles, crashes, wrong-way driving, pedestrians, animals, debris and smoke, and to alert a control room.
- Vision language model (VLM)
- A vision language model (VLM) is an AI model trained on images and text together, so it can describe what is in an image or find images that match a written description.
- VSDS (Vehicle speed detection system)
- A vehicle speed detection system (VSDS) measures the speed of each vehicle on a road section, links that speed to the vehicle's number plate and produces evidence that can support a speeding challan.
W
- Wrong-way detection
- Wrong-way detection is a video analytics function that identifies a vehicle moving against the permitted direction of traffic in a lane or carriageway and raises an alert.
Buyer guides
For procurement questions that need more than a definition, read the buyer guides: ANPR vs RFID at society gates, choosing an ANPR camera for highways, edge vs server ITMS architecture, and radar vs camera speed enforcement.