ANPR in Car Park Management: A Comprehensive Overview When you get to a car park and find that paying for a space is quick and easy, there are no barriers getting in the way and the site’s generally just a nice place to leave your car, it’s a safe assumption that somewhere in that car park ANPR cameras are enabling those services. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) empowers car parks, acting as a foundation for services that allow them to operate seamlessly, with minimal staff admin, reduced congestion, and optimised revenue. This blog post will cover how ANPR works, its benefits, challenges, and future trends. What is ANPR and how does it work? Benefits of ANPR in car park management Data collection and analytics Increased revenue Future Trends in ANPR Technology Home / Car Park Management / Latest Blogs / Parking News / ANPR for Car Parks: How Does It Work and What Are the Benefits? What is ANPR and how does it work? ANPR is driven by specialised cameras designed to capture and understand vehicle number plates. They eliminate the need for information to be captured manually and tend to consist of several core components: Camera: High-resolution cameras capture images of number plates. The cameras are strategically positioned at entry and exit points around a car park and may also be set up on high structures such as columns or overhead beams to ensure a clear view of the number plates. Some cameras are also capable of self-adjusting to get a better angle and more accurate reading of a number plate. Infrared Technology: Infrared illumination assists in capturing clear images, even in low-light conditions. This is ideal for car parks that are open 24/7 or a multi-storey site. Software: Advanced software processes the captured images, using optical character recognition (OCR) to convert the images into text. Some systems employ a machine learning system called “fuzzy matching” to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of this process. Fuzzy matching automatically creates and stores “near miss” variations of a vehicle number plate, including details of the vehicle’s make, model, and colour. This helps systems to track vehicles more accurately. When a vehicle drives into an ANPR car park the system follows a set process that covers several steps: Triggering: ANPR cameras are typically triggered by the movement of a vehicle within a specific area – like driving through the entrance or exit of a car park. Image Capture: The camera captures an image of the number plate. The camera’s sensor quickly captures several pictures to increase the chances of obtaining a clear image of the vehicle and its registration. Image Transmission: The captured image is transmitted to the ANPR system for analysis. Number Plate Detection: A machine learning system and object detection process identifies the vehicle registration within the image. Optical Character Recognition (OCR): OCR technology converts the image of the number plate into corresponding text characters. Data Processing: The extracted number plate data is pushed to a data warehouse where it is processed adhering to data privacy regulations. Find out more about our ANPR cameras Benefits of ANPR in car park management ANPR is a key tool in effectively managing car parks across the UK. Tracking vehicles is a starting point that acts as a foundation for a variety of services including: Access control and enforcement ANPR systems can control access to car parks, ensuring that only authorised vehicles are allowed entry. This can be particularly useful for private car parks or restricted areas, such as staff parking, hospitals and secure sites. ANPR systems can automatically monitor parking duration and enforce parking rules, such as time limits or permit requirements. This ensures everyone on a site follows the rules and acts as a strong deterrent against ongoing abuse. Enhanced security ANPR cameras can enhance security by monitoring vehicle movement and providing a visual deterrent against anti-social behaviour such as theft and vandalism. The systems provide a record of vehicles entering and exiting a car park and help to monitor vehicle movements, which can be a huge help in tracking visitors and improving security. Benefits of ANPR Enforcement Improved efficiency and streamlined processes Car parks work better when they aren’t congested – ANPR helps to automate a lot of entry and exit processes and speeds up transaction times for people. This helps to improve traffic flow and stop queues and congestion forming. Increased efficiency isn’t limited to preventing congestion. ANPR enables much faster payments, maximising revenue generation, cutting down queues, and, in many cases, facilitating the switch to cashless payments. Where appropriate, this can reduce security costs and other overheads as you remove the need for cash collection. Another area ANPR transforms is permits. Traditionally, a parking permit involved filling out a form by hand, dropping it off somewhere and then the staff had the laborious job of going through each application. Thankfully, technology has progressed, allowing permits to be integrated into a business digitally. Cloud-based permits allow you to manage permit applications on a much grander scale without excessive admin. Digital permits, coupled with ANPR, allow businesses to control their parking without having to issue paper permits. The cameras on a site track the vehicle registrations of cars as they arrive and cross-reference them against a permit database. On large-scale sites such as university campuses or complex hospitals, permits represent a huge time saving and increased environmental benefit from reduced waste and paper use. Data collection and analytics ANPR systems generate incredible amounts of data on how car parks are used, peak times, and customer behaviour. This data can be used to streamline car park operations, improve traffic flow, and make informed decisions about pricing and space allocation. The information ANPR cameras gather can be pivotal when it comes to making the right decisions about your car park and wider business. Camera data can provide deep insights into user behaviour, which allows for more informed decision-making. A vehicle registration holds more information than you might think. ANPR cameras can tap into that information and give you powerful data and insight into your car park and how it is used. For example, vehicle registration is tied to the make and model of the car – this tells you the type of vehicle and how it is fuelled. This sort of information lets you understand the number of electric vehicles using your car park and whether investing in EV charging would be worthwhile or not. You can also use data to track how busy your car park is at any given time, how people are paying for parking, how long visitors are staying and much more. This is all crucial information from your car park that can tell you a lot about how your business is performing elsewhere. Find out more about ANPR data Improved customer experience Removing congestion and queues while introducing faster, more flexible ways for someone to manage their stay are key markers for successful car park management that would largely not be possible without ANPR. Convenience is key, and tracking stay duration and vehicles being on-site digitally means that there’s no need for physical tickets or even traditional payment kiosks as everything can be handled by a parking app. There are many ways for someone to pay for parking and manage their stay, whether pre-booking, a permit, or a cashless payment. Apps allow people to use the tools that they’re most comfortable with – this personalised service transforms customer experience. ANPR tracking number plates can enhance this even further, take hotels for example, if they know a guest’s registration the system can let staff know when that person has arrived, allowing for a personalised welcome that helps to elevate the level of service beyond the car park. Increased revenue ANPR systems enhance payment platforms to automate entry and exit and calculate stay duration with greater accuracy. This allows for a seamless and convenient experience for customers, enabling cashless and app-based payments while reducing litter and waste by removing the need for paper tickets. Modern payment methods use automatic number plate recognition to deliver a greater level of accuracy. This removes the guesswork from paying for parking, while pay-on-exit strategies mean there’s no more rushing back to the car, giving visitors a much nicer experience. ANPR gives you the ability to let people pre-book their parking on your site. The occupancy data your site generates lets you identify how much surplus space you have. Instead of letting that space sit and do nothing, pre-booking lets you promote spaces and drive visitors to your site who have found your advertised spaces, arranged their stay, and paid for their parking in advance. That booking is tied to their vehicle registration, meaning their stay is confirmed and monitored by your system. Taking advantage of technology is a great way to maximise revenue and streamline your paid parking. For instance, next-generation payment machines can be fully integrated with powerful ANPR data to match vehicle details inputted to reduce manual entry errors. Not only does this provide confidence to the motorist and an easy-to-use system, but it also allows the landowner to monitor the duration of the stay along with the ability to identify whether they’ve paid or not. This helps to eliminate instances of visitors not paying for their parking, in turn cutting down on sources of abuse and lost revenue. How does ANPR impact your sector? Dolphin Hotel A popular hotel needed to revitalise their parking following a period of unreliable service Read more Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust Next-generation parking technology liberates one of the UK's largest acute Trusts, transforming revenues and eradicating visitor complaints. Read more Staffordshire University Staffordshire University looked to move to a permit and paid parking system and required a solution that was easy to... Read more Future trends in ANPR technology We’ve already mentioned that ANPR is a solid foundation for a variety of solutions, but ANPR technology continues to evolve, with several trends shaping its future in car park management, including its ability to integrate with electric vehicle charging. Adding electric vehicle, or EV, charging to your site is a major step and can represent a big investment in your steps to become greener. But EV chargers need to be used to be worthwhile, so how can ANPR help? First, the data you gain can tell you how many electric vehicles use your site. Adding chargers could increase that number, and it also provides a beneficial service those drivers are sure to love. Charging bays can be prone to abuse though, they tend to be in premium locations in a car park, which means, like other dedicated bays, people in a rush will park there just to run into a shop quickly. That means when a visitor arrives in need of charging, the bay is occupied, and they can’t make use of it. At the same time, you now have an angry customer in your car park, and your charger is not generating any revenue or benefit for your business. ANPR can protect your chargers; for example, our ParkEV chargers house an ANPR camera, meaning we can monitor and protect your charging spaces from misuse. That same technology also works in our Bay Management bollard, allowing you to apply the same sort of protection to other vital areas of your car park. Find out more about EV charging Giving you the tools to transform your parking ANPR doesn’t need to be complicated, at its core it’s simply a camera. It’s how ANPR can be applied that allows a site to adapt and improve its services. At Parkingeye, we are experts at helping businesses capitalise on how powerful ANPR can be. We help our clients identify the issues in their car parks and then implement the perfect blend of car park management solutions to eliminate abuse, streamline services, save time, increase footfall, and boost revenue. To find out more about ANPR download our handy infographic. Download our ANPR Infographic
