License plate capture cameras are specialized form of CCTV camera that has built in software that helps to identify and capture license plates on still or moving vehicles.

The intelligent traffic modes built into these cameras allows the camera to compensate for speed, weather, and headlight issues, which makes it challenging to capture a usable video that identifies license plates.

License plate camera has another name which is; License Plate Recognition (LPR). LPR systems are designed to provide a monitoring and capture device for properties, where traffic or parking is an integral part of daily operation and in mobile situations like law enforcement and tollbooth operations.

Security Cameras may offer both a mobile license plate recognition system and a fixed license plate recognition system. With multiple features like picture-in-picture view, powerful solutions could be given for License Plate Recognition Systems.

License plate cameras catch law breakers such as speeders and give the police department a hand to enforce the law. Traffic-light enforcement is another application that has benefited from License plate camera. Violation of traffic signals, for example, running past red lights, is a major safety issue and causes numerous fatalities. Imaging systems are now capable of monitoring both the color of the traffic light and the movement of vehicles through intersections. When a vehicle moves into the intersection against a red light, the imaging system detects the offender and records the traffic-light color, the make and model of the vehicle, and the license plate. All this information is automatically sent from permanent intersection installations to ticket-processing centers.

There are people who are called Bootable, who help the police department by using a special type of License plate cameras. A bootable has a white van with two cameras attached on the top head of the van. These cameras are linked to a laptop, which has certain software with a huge license plates database. While the cam picks up the license plate number, the program analyzes the data, and if it finds that this plate number has over than 3-traffic ticket, the bootable will boot your car until you pay your debt.

A new wave of technology appears, which is Mobile LPR Edition and it is a proven way to enable police cruisers to detect stolen or suspect cars automatically by driving on the highway or while passing through a parking lot. This technology automatically triggers in-car audio/visual alarms based on LPR Hot-Lists associated with stolen autos and other criminal activities via matching against federal, state and local databases.

Here are some of License plate cameras applications:
Condominiums/Home Gates.
Parking lot management.
Automatic toll collection enforcement.
Traffic enforcement statistics.
Border surveillance.
Stolen vehicle search.

Despite these cameras features and advantages, there are a number of possible difficulties that the software must cope with, and these include:

Poor image resolution, usually because the plate is too far away but sometimes resulting from the use of a low-quality camera.
Blurry images, particularly motion blur.
Poor lighting and low contrast due to overexposure, reflection or shadows.
An object obscuring (part of) the plate, quite often a tow bar, or dirt on the plate.
A different font, popular for vanity plates (some countries do not allow such plates, eliminating the problem).
Circumvention techniques.
Lack of coordination between countries or states. Two cars from different countries or states can have the same number but different design of the plate.