The Golden River Marksman 850 (M850) Automatic Number Plate Recognition system has only ever been used as part of the Helsinki journey-time monitoring system, and a bridge weight limit enforcement system in Cawood (North Yorkshire).

But beware! It is about to be employed throughout the UK motorway network as part of a Highways Agency/TRL contract for the provision of Number Plate data. These sites will be temporary and will be initially installed around Birmingham (M40, M42, M5, M6). MAG is also led to believe there are contracts recently let for journey time monitoring systems in Rotterdam and Glasgow.

The software in the M850 is provided by Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR), who have teamed up with Golden River for well over a year now. The DVLA is about to procure 10 mobile ANPR based systems for detecting unlicensed vehicles.

The interesting thing about this offence is that you do not have to be issued with a Notice of Intended Prosecution IP within 14 days, 6 months will do!