Crossing Baltic borders with Nedap

The queue challenge

Kilometer-long queues of vehicles waiting to cross the EU border into Belarus and Russia were a common sight in Lithuania. Especially for trucks, border waiting times as a result of heavy traffic could reach up to 5-6 days at peak times. Without waiting areas or coordination of border, this enormous amount of traffic has led to bottlenecks at border crossings and negative impact on the environment.

Award winning solution

With the official opening of the new Queue Management Service (EVIS), developed by GoSwift, the queue challenge belongs to the past. Through the platform www.ltborder.eu, Lithuania enables motorists to pre-book their border crossing by registering their personal details and vehicle license plate number online. Pre-registered information in the queue management system facilitates border control officers with a fast and efficient border check. The reservation system is awarded with the 2015 Transport Achievement Award.

Queue management system at Belarusian border Medininkai (image source: goswift.eu)

Comfortable border crossing

The essence of the booking system is that any driver is able to pre-select a convenient time to cross the border. The system offers the option to pre-book a slot or join a virtual queue. Via dynamic displays, arriving motorists are informed in real-time on the number of queued vehicles and are guided to the waiting areas. This queue management system is now available to optimize the flow of traffic at the Lithuanian – Russian border Kybartai and Lithuanian – Belarusian borders Medininkai, Lavoriškės, Šalčininkų and Raigardo. At all border crossings, trucks and cars are identified through license plate recognition readers from Nedap. This innovation makes reaching the other side of the border just a few minutes away.

ANPR for vehicle access control

After testing several systems at the border crossings in Lithuania, Nedap is selected for its license plate recognition system, ANPR Access. Nedap is specialist in systems for vehicle identification based on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and ANPR (Number Plate Recognition). High-end systems that are easy to integrate into any third party traffic, security, parking or logistic management system.

Nedap offers a plug and play ANPR system, specifically designed for vehicle access control and free flow applications. This all-in-one-solution has all intelligence on-board and can easily be integrated and installed.

Lithuanian partner Viltechna is supplier and installer of the Nedap ANPR system in this project and operates as a consultant for the Lithuanian government. Viltechna is a leading ITS solution provider providing intellectual engineering design and consulting services on different levels of ITS systems like Speed Enforcement, Weigh In Motion, ANPR solutions and Smart lighting solutions.

Results and prospects

The results are impressive. A better use of the capacity of border crossing points and a more efficient journey planning for trucks and passenger cars are just two of the immediate benefits. The mandatory pre-booking also cuts out illicit trade and eliminated the thriving black market for border crossing slots. The disappearance of truck queues has improved local traffic flows and road safety. Additionally, the environment benefits in terms of waste, noise and CO2 emission reduction.