World’s first, fastest robot-operated number plates factory opens in Dubai

Dubai - RTA will install 10 similar machines at centres of service providers.

The world’s first factory that ‘employs’ only robots to manufacture number plates has been inaugurated in Dubai. With this single factory in Deira, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) can produce 1,000 per cent more number plates than the traditional system.

The robot factory has a host of features that will render number plates with a “zero margin error”, according to the RTA. In comparison, the traditional method had the risk of repeating the printing of some numbers.

The production capacity of the new system is 33,000 plates per day, compared to just 3,000 plates in the traditional system. The new machine can produce a plate every 15 seconds, while the old one used to take about two minutes to print a single plate. “The new machine can print six different types of plates at a time, but the old one couldn’t print more than one type,” the RTA said in a Press statement on Saturday.

The factory uses the technology of the fourth industrial revolution and artificial intelligence applications in printing number plates without any human intervention. Each manufacturing unit at the factory can produce 11,000 plates per day — 350 to 700 plates per hour.

The RTA explained that a robot at the factory receives printing orders electronically through the e-licensing system and prints plates without any human intervention. The system tracks the life cycle of the number plate from manufacturing up to scrapping using the QR code affixed to the plate.

Mattar Al Tayer, Director-General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of the RTA, toured the factory at the authority’s customer service centre in Deira.

In the “near future”, the RTA will instal 10 similar machines at centres of service providers, all of which will be controlled through a central factory.

• Transport
• Dubai