Smart number plate, e-bail sans passport unveiled
dubai — A smart licence plate that can detect if your car is being stolen and a smart bail system that won’t need litigants to surrender their passports were among the several Dubai government innovations that were showcased on Monday.
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) said the digital number plate called Tag2Connect is a smart screen that will replace the current metal plate.
The authority will start testing the smart plates next month. “With the digital plate installed in your car, you don’t need to come every year to any RTA service centre to renew your vehicle plate,” Sultan Abdullah Almarzouqi, RTA’s director of vehicle licensing department, said.
Meanwhile, the Dubai Public Prosecution has unveiled a smart bail system that will ensure that all the information of litigants is stored electronically. Ali Humaid Al Khatim, advocategeneral and chief prosecutor of immigration at the public prosecution, said: “Now, we have an electronic system with the police, and so, every accused person is in our system.”
dubai — The number of people in a crowd, homes, trees, pets, cars and parking slots are some of the many things that will be measured in Dubai with a drone that has been introduced by the Dubai Statistics Centre (DSC).
The centre has already launched a pilot phase, where the drone has been able to collect data in certain areas of the emirate.
The project is being implemented to help in producing accurate and instant data with the use of artificial intelligence.
“We have launched a pilot test of statistical services through drones in limited areas, in rural areas and suburban areas,” said Loay Mahmoud, the senior specialist at the DSC.
“We are in the process of developing a software that can recognise buildings, trees, humans, cars and many things. We have counted the buildings, trees, car parking spots and the number of cars in some areas.”
We are developing an algorithm-based software with AI. The ultimate goal is to have multiple data sources such as crowd movement and density in certain areas.” Loay Mahmoud, senior specialist, DSC
Mahmoud said the drone will help specially in large scale events that happen in Dubai throughout the year, as it will be able to measure exactly how many people attended a certain event.
“We are developing the software to count the number of people in a crowd. For New Year’s Eve, for example, we can easily fly the drone in the Burj Khalifa area and we can count how many people are there. It can give an instant count and the accuracy level is 99 per cent.
“So far, we have an accuracy level of 75 per cent to 90 per cent, but that’s not acceptable for us. We are developing an algorithmbased software with artificial intelligence (AI). The ultimate goal is to have multiple data sources such as crowd movement and density in certain areas.”
The drone uses the help of artificial intelligence to recognise shapes of objects and humans. Thousands of different kinds of images and shapes can be programmed into its system, helping it recognise certain shapes.
“This is called machine learning. It can easily count the number of people. In the darkness, it can easily capture how many people attended,” he said.
Mahmoud has ensured that there will be no privacy breaches because of the drone and that privacy of each individual is “respected”.
“We don’t break the privacy of people. We have standards for that. One of our mandates is to avoid leakage of any private information of our customers. We don’t store the images. The machine just gathers and reads the numbers and feeds it to us,” he said.
sarwat@khaleejtimes.com