Dashboard Overview. Source: ParkPow.
Powerful, Actionable Real-Time Data
It’s frustrating when drivers break the rules on your property or roadway. It seems like blatant disregard for the rights and property of others, especially when you notice the same handful of people committing the same violations again and again.
Some property owners put up cameras with signs hoping drivers will notice and change their behavior. At first it seems to work, at least with some drivers, but most quickly revert to their old habits. Others might pay a traffic or gate attendant to monitor drivers and record information for violators, but that gets expensive fast. There’s a better way.
One high-tech solution involves using street-level automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), also sometimes called automatic license plate readers, to capture vehicle data. This can be an effective solution, but only if you can make sense of the data you gather and consistently put it to use. Our ALPR Dashboard puts all your ALPR insights in one location to simplify and streamline management.
Traffic Camera. Source: Unsplash
What is ALPR?
Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) devices can be mounted in strategic locations like facility entrances, telephone poles and at traffic lights, then controlled and accessed using computers. ALPR can take a live camera or video feed and identify license plate numbers and vehicles in real-time.
ALPRs might take photos of vehicles traveling through or parked in public spaces from the front or rear, and when they do, they add the date, time stamp and location. The cameras then securely upload that data to a central server.
ALPR Data Storage
ALPR software can capture thousands of plates per minute. Some (like our Plate Recognizer solution) can even accurately note the color, make and model of vehicles. That information gets stored in databases for days, months, even years.
Those databases might be accessible to home community owners, law enforcement, private agencies, insurance companies and other entities, depending on who owns them and applicable privacy regulations.
Big Challenge, Powerful Solution
The thing is, ALPR data alone basically just gives you a huge amount of data and images. For instance, you may have a single camera that captures a license plate about every five minutes. In a month, that camera will record over 8,000 images along with their time stamp and location.
If you need data on just a handful of them, how will you make sense of it all? Or, if you want to see patterns and trends, how will you sift through?
Our ALPR dashboard is a powerhouse that makes it quick and easy to organize that data so you can easily search the database, analyze data, create alerts and achieve your ALPR goals.
Common Needs for ALPR Dashboard
ALPR data can be powerful because it shows trends and behaviors over time. Cameras act indiscriminately, gathering information on every driver that passes by around the clock.
Law enforcement uses ALPR data in crime prevention. The U.S. Department of Justice reported in a random sample of 444 local and state agencies, stolen vehicle recoveries went up by 68%, arrests more than doubled and productivity increased by 50%. However, law enforcement agencies aren’t the only entities who benefit from being able to analyze large amounts of license plate data.
It’s just as powerful for commercial use. You may not need to solve a crime, but dealing with drivers who violate the rules of the road can be even more frustrating if you don’t have a badge. Automatic License Plate Recognition helps you capture images of the drivers causing the problem. Then our ALPR dashboard allows you to identify patterns and use the data you gathered to make life better for everyone.
One Way Sign. Source: Unsplash
Get a Quick Overview
Log in to your ALPR dashboard to see all available data at a glance, then drill down on our user-friendly table to access information on all plates decoded.
For example, let’s say you manage a gated community and several residents have complained about an increase in traffic through the subdivision. The gate says the streets are only for residents and their guests, so you want to know if there has indeed been an increase in traffic, so you turn to your ALPR Dashboard for answers.
Use Intuitive Search Capabilities
Not only can you see whether or not there has actually been an increase over time, you can see the timeframes unauthorized vehicles drive through, view their license plates, and access other data like vehicle type, color, and make. For example, you might search for a blue SUV with the characters “B3” in the license plate that has passed through in the last three days.
Red Toyota. Source: Unsplash
Tag Vehicles
Our ALPR Dashboard also allows you to tag vehicles and set up custom alerts. For instance, as the gated community manager above, you might also hear concerns about a red Toyota frequently speeding through the subdivision. Speed limits are clearly posted and residents are worried about their children at play. Your ALPR dashboard allows you to:
- Isolate data on all red Toyota vehicles
- Learn the license plate of the vehicle fitting witnesses description
- Compare the time it takes to get from Camera A to Camera B to verify whether the driver was indeed speeding
- View traffic over time to see how frequently the problem occurs
- Assign tags like “Resident,” “Visitor,” “Authorized,” or “Denied” to individual vehicles
You are able to quickly sift through the data you’ve gathered and take appropriate steps to make your community a safer place.
Custom Alerts
The ALPR dashboard enables you to receive custom alerts any time drivers take a specified action. For example, in the gated community situation listed above, let’s say you identified the driver of the red Toyota and found the person didn’t even live in your community. You tagged them as a non-resident, gave them a warning and made a note in your system.
Next, you’re able to set up a custom alert to notify you immediately via email the next time that vehicle enters your gated community, along with the associated details and image. If they continue to drive dangerously, you have data and documentation to hand over to law enforcement.
Set up custom alerts for any time you want to stay informed. Receive an email if a disgruntled former employee drives through or stay informed every time your delivery truck arrives to unload.
Inform Response with our Vehicle CRM
Our beautiful, user-friendly layouts make it incredibly simple to access all available data on every single vehicle in just a few steps. The vehicle CRM is a powerful database that displays information like the following all on one screen:
- All vehicle activity across all the sites you manage
- Vehicle details like license plate number, make, model, tags and information you input like the driver’s name, company or length of relationship
- Any comments you or other administrators entered on previous interactions
Make a note when you give someone a warning, then you’ll start to see anyone who is a repeat offender. Comment to record suspicious behavior or assistance rendered in case you need to follow up. Or for retailers, segment customers by vehicle type to better understand your clientele.
Enjoy ALPR Dashboard’s Extensive Data History & Easy Integrations
All the data on every vehicle remains accessible through your ALPR Dashboard for a full year, or 365 days. Import and integrate existing data on employees, residents or authorized users. If you need to send comments, aggregated vehicle history or images to law enforcement or other entities, it’s easy to forward what you’ve gathered from Snapshot Cloud SDK and Stream.
Parking Lot. Source: Unsplash
Parking Management Solutions Available
As a special bonus to ALPR Dashboard users, we offer the ability to upgrade and unlock full parking management features. Not only do you have all the capabilities listed above, but from the same dashboard, you enable around-the-clock monitoring of every parking facility you manage.
See when vehicles enter and exit your parking structure and how long they stay. Receive custom alerts when vehicles exceed a set time limit, when disgruntled employees or problem tenants park on your property or any other type of alert you choose.
ALPR Dashboard Encourages Safer Driving
Drivers break traffic rules for a number of reasons. Sometimes they’re in a hurry and stress overrides their caution. Every once in a while someone doesn’t understand the rules or doesn’t see the signs you posted to keep people safe.
However, the most common reason people break traffic rules is that they feel like they can get away with it. They know what they should do, they’re just not motivated to follow through.
You can take control of traffic flow, safety, congestion and other factors when you can gather and organize data on driver behavior for streets and properties you manage.
We make it super easy to get onboard our ALPR Dashboard with Plate Recognizer ALPR. Setup takes three minutes or less. Plus, our ALPR Dashboard is pre-integrated with our Snapshot and Stream products, so it takes less than two minutes to set that up. Or, if you’re using a different ALPR solution, our ALPR dashboard can integrate with that too.
Let us know how we can help you get started with our ALPR Dashboard!
