Car park perimeter security dramatically improves with effective automatic number plate recognition. When ANPR operates as the heart, or nucleus, of an overall car park security strategy, car park and property stakeholders reap multiple benefits from short-term executional efficiencies to longer-term strategic improvements. Not only can ANPR track entrance and exit times of all vehicles and site occupancy, but it can also deliver customized alerts to deliver meaningful real-time data to those who need it most.
Colorful cars parked outside Source: Pexels.
Car Parks as Perimeter Security
Do you know what moats and car parks have in common? They both function as physical security barriers to protect the occupants of the castle or shopping mall from harm in the form of opposing warrior forces or intruders; as in medieval times, securing the perimeter was a key strategy in ensuring the safety of the castle’s occupants. It’s no different today. Instead of lining the exterior walls with sharp-shooting archers, we rely on technology like automatic number plate recognition systems with strategically placed cameras that alert security personnel of potential trojan horses while automatically allowing authorized guests to enter without delay.
It’s much faster than a drawbridge. And the barrier is way more functional than an alligator habitat. Because of a car park’s physical proximity to:
- shopping malls and other retail destinations
- business office complexes, campuses, and towers
- apartment, townhome, and condo complexes,
Modern-day car parks act as a natural barrier that offers perimeter security to see who’s on the premises before they enter any building. When strengthening this natural barrier with a powerful ANPR, management can boost security and efficiency without being perceived as overly fortified. Aside from identifying visitors before entering buildings, ANPR can help car park perimeter security also monitor how long each vehicle has remained on the property and ensure that scarce parking spaces are used appropriately.
Underground parking garage. Source: Unsplash.
Not all ANPR is Created Equal
Many products and services today are commoditized. Slight differences can be exaggerated by branding, like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, giving the illusion of product superiority. In other cases, easily replicated, competing products find themselves in a race to the bottom by making their minimum viable products as cheap as possible by cutting corners and proclaiming greater value.
Yet, ANPR is different. Why? Because not all ANPR providers use the same technology. While both a pine and oak cocktail table can be equally functional in a living room, different AI engines can deliver significantly different outputs. How so? Because the core AI systems think differently, just like human intelligence. Plus, every AI engine needs input and feedback to improve, but doing so means more frequent updates and ongoing development investments. Not every vendor is willing to strive to be the best. For some, 95% or better is good enough.
Shoes and a car in a parking garage. While the colors are similar, they are both quite different! Source: Unsplash.
We Never Stop Striving for 100%
Unlike others in the ANPR space, we continuously update and feed our AI engine to get increasingly more accurate and precise results in different countries worldwide. Why? Because we know that every false positive or incomplete plate read is a failure in automation. It means that an approved vehicle could be delayed in reaching its destination, while staff hours are wasted manually processing vehicles.
Less accurate or precise ANPR systems can fail in low lighting, inclement weather, or at severe angles. They can fail to read damaged number plates, plates at angles, or vehicles moving quickly. They notoriously misidentify bumper stickers as number plates, which falsely places two vehicles in a car park when, in reality, there’s only one.
We know that every misidentified plate is a single point of hassle for our customers. It’s one unknown vehicle that cannot be accurately tracked over time. That’s why we strive for 100% accuracy. While others plan for 6-12 month product update releases, we release updates every 3-6 weeks, which ensures that our customers benefit from the latest advances in accuracy at a pace of roughly 8x our competitors.
Aerial view of cars parked. Source: Unsplash.
Location, Location, Location
Just as the value of a home increases dramatically based on location, so does the value of ANPR data. Fortunately, you don’t have to pay 3X the price for choosing a well-placed camera; you just have to be strategic about your choices to garner the best results for your ANPR data. The quality of ANPR data can be impacted by the location of cameras in ways you may not have considered. Unlike some ANPR scenarios, direction matters when designing or upgrading a system. To properly track car park entrances and exits, cameras must be able to designate whether vehicles are coming or going, especially when there’s only one pathway in and out.
ANPR Exit and Entrance Data Uses
The beauty of an ANPR system is in the value of the data you can collect and analyze for more significant insights to improve your car park management system. You can track both the entrance and exit times of all cars. This data is helpful with respect to the movements of individual vehicles and, in aggregate. Individually, you can identify the duration of visits to calculate parking fees, frequency of visits, or know when vehicles have been left overnight or past maximum visit hours. You can specifically review the movements of one vehicle in particular, from the times it visited to the duration, and related system alerts. In aggregate, this data provides a real-time look at occupancy and can determine the busiest and slowest times of day and days of the week, the average length of visit, and more.
Entrance and exit gates in a parking garage. Source: Unsplash.
Seamless ANPR Parking Sophistication with Simple Rules
It’s simple for parking administrators to apply different categories of rules to different vehicles within the ANPR system, even vehicles without number plates. For instance, residential dwellings often tag for:
● Tenants
● Administration
● Contractors
● Visitors.
Hospitals and medical centers, for example, can set specific rules for their vehicles to include:
● Doctors
● Nurses
● Staff
● Administration
● Contractors
● Visitors.
A beautiful sports car parked in the ceiling. Source: Pexels.
ANPR Alerts System Works like Reception and Security All in One
Imagine automatically getting an alert when your vendor contractor arrives on premises. Or when a visitor overstays their 3-hour welcome. Or even when an untagged vehicle is seen traversing multiple parking areas within the span of a couple of hours or still onsite after 9 PM. You can create customized alerts for convenience, operational efficiency, best security practices, and more. If you can imagine it, you can create it. Further, you can determine who gets alerted and how.
Because your ANPR system is dynamic, you can make changes over time. As with many AI engines, customers report that the ability to collect and analyze data inspires users to ask bigger and better questions. These questions and the resulting analytics often improve the overall efficiency of the team and organization.
Integrating an ANPR with ParkPow for Greater Control and Flexibility
If parking space were unlimited, car park management would be much easier. But the reality is that there isn’t enough parking to go around in many instances, so rules must be put in place, vehicles prioritized, and rules enforced. If not, priority customers or building tenants will leave, taking the revenue they bring with them.
To combat these challenges, car parks create rules such as limited-time parking or specially designated spots for priority tenants and customers. But these rules are only as good as the enforcement. And enforcement can require a significant commitment of labor that adds up. Even then, wily offenders know how to work the system and often get away unscathed.
White Nissan sports car at the top. Source: Pexels.
ParkPow as Your 24/7 Rules Enforcer
Does your car park have to enforce many rules like limited-time parking and custom-designated lots? When you have car parks that serve buildings with multiple parking space rules, dynamic visitors like hospitals or hotels, or areas where you want to manage turnover more closely in specific spots, ParkPow can deliver the additional integration you need.
ParkPow is the additional team you need to manage and enforce parking rules. It allows you to track vehicles and get proactive alerts on vehicles parked in unauthorized areas or those who overstayed their welcome.
Even those wily offenders can be identified and caught by ANPR and ParkPow, as the system maintains a record of all vehicles that enter and exit over time, allowing you to create alerts for unauthorized vehicles that routinely try to enter the area.
Two identical cars parked near each other. What are the odds? Source: Pexels.
ParkPow Aids in Specific Spot Security
With ParkPow’s rules management, you can create and enforce rules designed for a specific set of parking spots in your car park. For instance, hospital car parks have specific spots for doctors, visitors, and administration. These rules help ensure that only physicians park in their designated spots, which optimizes their precious time and demonstrates the hospital’s commitment to a seamless experience for their critical staff. Meanwhile, visitor parking rules like maximum 2 hours or no parking after visiting hours can easily be enforced with automatic alerts for citations or warnings.
Open APIs Enable Customers to Build a Customized Parking Solution
ParkPow’s open APIs enable you to integrate data from your payment system, tenant database, hotel CRM, and more, so to make parking enforcement and fee collection a snap. ParkPow functions like a diligent parking attendant who takes photos, keeps meticulous notes, and tells you when a vehicle has violated the exact rules you’ve set up. How can you use these rules? Imagine when a vehicle extends its stay in a 3-hour spot to 4 hours. A property manager gets an email alert. What if the violator stays another hour? You can have a text message sent to a towing company with the vehicle’s number plate and photo.
These consistent actions, based on alerts and actions set by you, will soon work to deter others from disobeying the car park rules, which is the system’s goal.
Classic European car in the city center. Source: Pexels.
Better Enforcement, Lower Costs
With ANPR and ParkPow, you can actually deliver better parking policy enforcement, optimize security with alerts based on your rules, and reduce operating costs. It’s hard to ignore a value proposition that delivers optimized speed, increased quality, and lower price. But that’s what next-generation AI technology can bring to you.
Discover What Plate Recognizer Can Do for You
Are you intrigued? Wondering how and if this system could deliver for you?
The best way to reveal what an ANPR system with ParkPow can do for you is to experience it yourself. Consider how it could improve your daily management and long-term car park strategies. See how it can transform your car park by test-driving our software and seeing the parking dashboard for yourself.
Don’t see these “happy” Porches often these days. Source: Pexels.