Designing a license plate

The majority of license plates in Saudi Arabia contain a 7-digit code to represent the registration number of vehicles. This information can be difficult to read, memorize, and reproduce in a short period of time, such as in the case of recall of hit-and-run accidents. The study reported proposes a registration code composed of 3 letters and 3 digits. This alphanumeric code can be converted into a numerical value which would give close to 20 million possible permutations, which would cover the projected number of vehicles to the year 2012. The original and proposed designs would give, in addition to two other alphanumeric codes, were tested on 60 participants using computer animations at three exposure times (1, 2, and 3 s). The results of the ANOVA on the errors committed and Sheffe tests reveal a significant difference (alpha = 0.01) between the 7-digit design and the other designs at all time intervals. Validation of the laboratory experiments were conducted on 15 different participants in the field, with similar findings.