License Plate Recognition for Industrial Sites
acty.dev builds camera-based license plate recognition for gates and entry points at industrial sites, opening the barrier automatically for vehicles matched against your whitelist and keeping a timestamped log of every read.
At an industrial gate, a license plate recognition camera checks the plates that approach against the vehicles your site has already cleared, raising the barrier on a match and holding anything else for the guard. From there the same read carries further: into dock and shipment records, into incident review, and into the traffic counts kept across the site.
Where it applies on the floor
A whitelist match opens the barrier automatically. At a gate checked today by a guard working from memory or a paper list, a vehicle pulls up and the camera reads its plate against a whitelist drawn from the site’s own access-control or business system. A match triggers an automatic signal that opens the barrier without anyone at the gate touching a button. A plate that doesn’t match is held at the barrier and logged for the guard. Routine, permitted traffic clears itself, and the guard’s attention goes where it’s needed instead of every single car.
A plate tied to a shipment or waybill. At a loading dock, a truck arrives to collect or deliver a shipment that already has a record waiting in the site’s ERP or WMS. The camera reads the plate on arrival and again on departure and matches it against the shipment expected at that dock. The license plate recognition system attaches the read to the shipment record automatically, and if the vehicle at the dock doesn’t match what’s expected, it names the mismatch by dock and shipment. Nobody has to write a plate down by hand for the arrival and departure record to stay accurate.
A plate tied to a zone or downtime event. The same yard and dock footage already watched for zone and downtime events also carries the vehicles moving through it. When an unfamiliar plate shows up in a restricted area, or a vehicle sits at a dock well past its expected window, the system treats that as an event in its own right. The plate read gets linked to that specific event, and a notification goes out with a clip attached. Reviewing the incident then starts with the plate and the clip already in hand, not an hour spent scrubbing through footage looking for the moment it happened.
Vehicle counts at gates and in the yard. Vehicles move through gates, parking areas, and yard entrances all day. Crossings at a counted gate or entry line register as counts, broken down by vehicle type at each monitored point. That count runs alongside the whitelist check rather than depending on it, so traffic still gets tallied even at a point with no barrier at all. Gate and yard traffic patterns become visible over a shift or a day without anyone standing there with a clicker.
The problem we solve
Industrial sites often track vehicle entry and exit by hand: a paper logbook at the gate, a guard calling plates in over radio, or no record at all. That makes it slow to check who was on site during a given window, hard to catch a vehicle that shouldn't be there, and inconsistent across shifts and guards.
How we work
- Task review.We review your gates, yard, or entry points, the vehicles or vendors you need to track, and any camera coverage or access-control and logging systems already in place, then agree the event set to capture and a sample of gate footage to validate against before any build starts.
- Pilot on your footage.Night conditions, dirt on a plate, and a gate camera's mounting angle are what that footage sample gets tuned against. Recognition then runs on your gate footage under the acceptance process set out on the AI video analytics page.
- Integration and rollout.Confirmed reads are tied into your access-control system: a whitelist match can trigger an automatic barrier or access signal, while unmatched or genuinely uncertain reads are logged and can be routed to a person for a decision. The setup then moves from pilot to a full rollout across the agreed gates or entry points.
- Document and support.We hand over a plate-read log review process and tuning notes for your gates and docks, plus ongoing support or a retainer as you add entry points or change the vehicle list.
What you bring / what you get
Inputs
- Footage from your gate cameras, or existing CCTV access, for the pilot
- Your gate, yard, or entry-point layout and camera constraints
- Any vehicle or vendor list to match plate reads against
- The access-control or logging system already in place, if any
Outputs
- A piloted license plate recognition setup validated against agreed acceptance thresholds
- A timestamped log of plate reads tied into your access-control or logging system
- An automatic barrier or access signal wired into your access-control system for matched plates
Definition of done.A license plate recognition pilot validated against an agreed event set, control sample, and the acceptance thresholds agreed for the pilot, with matched reads wired into an automatic barrier or access-control signal, unmatched reads logged, and the rollout documented across the agreed gates or entry points.
Fit and anti-fit
Good fit
- Industrial or manufacturing sites logging vehicle entry and exit by hand
- Sites ready to wire confirmed plate reads into a barrier, dock record, or access-control system, not just get advice
Not a fit
- Public parking or toll-enforcement requests outside an industrial site
- No vehicle list or event set defined yet, just a single-gate micro-budget ask
Questions
- What does license plate recognition include?
- A dated entry for each plate read at your gates and entry points, plus the link from each read to the shipment or access record it belongs to, with reads checked on your own gate footage against the acceptance thresholds agreed for the pilot.
- Why use camera-based plate recognition instead of a manual gate log?
- A paper logbook or radio call-in is slow and inconsistent across shifts. Camera capture gives a consistent, timestamped record of vehicle entry and exit that you can review after the fact.
- Can a matched plate open the gate automatically?
- Yes. A whitelisted plate raises the barrier on its own, so the guard only handles vehicles the list cannot vouch for; a genuinely unclear read can still go to a person for a final call.
- Can a plate read be tied to a specific shipment or delivery?
- Yes. On sites where a truck's visit corresponds to a shipment record in your ERP or WMS, the plate read at arrival and departure can be attached to that record automatically, and a mismatch at the dock gets flagged by name.
- How is this priced?
- Small, tightly scoped gate tasks can start from a few hundred dollars. Adding gates, or an ongoing retainer, gets priced once we've reviewed the task.
Explore
Have a process, dataset, or camera footage to work from?