Number plate recognition software to monitor parking trends in Palmy

Published on 31 May 2022

A new number plate recognition system is being trialled in Palmy for three months to monitor parking trends.

Data captured during the trial will be included in a council parking investigation to help us identify parking trends across the city, such as what parks are being used, for how long and when. This will indicate whether we need to make any changes, including how people pay, hours, accessibility parking and time restrictions.

The system uses a set of high-resolution cameras to photograph number plates and the GPS location of parked cars as officers patrol the city from one of our vehicles. This is the same data already captured by our officers on foot.

The trial extends to both on and off-street parking across Palmy but will not see any parking tickets issued. Officers will continue to enforce parking on foot.

Chief Infrastructure Officer Sarah Sinclair says the system collects each vehicle’s number plate number, location and the time it was collected.

“It’s like a digital version of the car’s wheel being chalked. Data is stored in a dedicated cloud by our provider and is then passed to officers in our Transport and Parking teams for analysis only.

“The trial will help us to determine whether we can make parking easier for our motorists, while data collected will also help us to assess where we need to invest in future parking services.”

The vehicle will be operational mostly during the weekdays and work hours, though it might also be seen patrolling on weekends and after hours.

Similar systems have been implemented to manage on-street parking in Auckland. Hamilton is currently also trialling the system.

So, what does this mean for people wanting to use our car parks?

• Continue to use our parking services as you normally do.
• Parking officers will continue to monitor the city on foot.
• There will be no change to how infringement notices will be issued, as data from the trial will not be used for enforcement.
• Parking data is held on a secure cloud and shared only with our council parking team.