General ACCR Description

To keep tracking of containers in the logistic and inventory management systems container codes are used for identification. Automatic Container Code Recognition is a technology which is able to recognize these unique codes from an image or video signal, and give it back in a computer editable format for further processing.

The CCR is an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) based technology, which means intelligent image processing.
It has two essential technological issues.
 • the quality of the CCR software with it's applied recognition algorithm
 • the quality of the image acquisition technology, the camera and the illumination

The very key factor is the CCR software. The sophistication of the recognition software, the intelligence and quality of the applied recognition algorithms, the mathematical knowledge and the years of experience behind determines the capabilities of the recognition software. The better the algorithms are, the highest the quality of the recognition software is:
 • the highest recognition accuracy it has,
 • the fastest processing speed it has,
 • the widest range of picture quality it can handle,
 • the most tolerant against distortions of input data it is.

In a well working system the codes are standardized. ISO 6346 (known as BIC codes too) is an international standard for assigning unique codes to freight containers. The structure of an ISO 6346 code is: 4 capital letters and 7 digits owner code, consisting of three capital letters product group code, consisting of one of capital letters U, J or Z 6 numeric digits, assigned by the owner, uniquely identifying the container within that owner's fleet. a seventh check digit The product group code consists of one of the following three capital letters:   U - for all freight containers   J - for detachable freight container-related equipment   Z - for trailers and chassis

Keywords: OCR, CCR, container code recognition, optical container code recognition, container recognition, automatic code recognition, ACCR, container code reading, automatic container code reading, container reading, automatic container identification, container identification, BIC code reading, BIC code recognition, ISO 6346