Australian National Car Parks have conceded defeat in NSW and are starting to introduce boom gate parking in their car parks.
In the past, 99% of ANCP managed car parks have used the "Pay and Display" model, which maximised their revenue as they would charged between $88.00 and $173 for each person who forgot to display a ticket. However, with the introduction of new legislation in NSW preventing ANCP from obtaining driver's details from the RTA, they have been forced to begin introducing boom gate car parks.
Auburn car parkThe first such car park is Aldi car park at 6-10 Harrow Road Auburn, NSW. The plans for this car park are attached here and indicate parking will be managed by boom gates and a person will man the collection box on the way out to collect payments. Proceed to page 3 to see the description of the boom gates.Wooloomoolo car park
Woolworths Wooloomoolo has already been approved by council for boom gates and the boom gates are in trial now. License plate recognition hardware and software will automatically record your vehicle's registration number on the way in through the entrance boom gates. Before you leave, you need to walk up to a "ticket" machine and enter your registration. If you are still within the free limit period, the machine tells you parking is free and you don't need to pay anything and it tells you how long you have to exit the car park (with a configurable period of grace, usually 10 mins). If you've been there longer than the free limit, you need to put in the required amount of money ($65 or more) into the machine. When you get to the boom gate the system "reads" your number plate. If you are still within the free parking limit, the system will raise the boom gate for you and allow you to leave. If you are over the free limit, and have paid for that over limit period, the system will raise the boom gate for you and allow you to leave. If you are over the free limit, but have not paid for that over limit period, the boom gate will not raise and a message on the screen (or an offsite operator) will direct you to go and pay. If you tailgate another car out thru the exit boom gate without paying for your over limit period, then the number plate recognition will record your rego and ANCP will get your name and address from RMS (the new legislation preventing ANCP from getting owner's details doesn't forbid this in the scenario where you drive around a boom gate), and the system will also block you from entering the car park again until you have paid the $65 parking fee plus an additional "penalty" fee for breach of contract. Basically, the $65 parking fee in the new system is almost identical to the old penalty of $66, but it is now enforced differently because ANCP can't get names and addresses from RMS anymore for their pay and display car parks, so they have purchased/rented this boom gate system with automatic number plate recognition. It is a hybrid of similar technology used in other countries. You'll note that licence plate recognition is also in use in Victoria (at ANCP's Barkly Square), but they don't have the boom gates at Barkly Square yet.
Press articles on Wooloomooloo:
Woolies shoppers pay $65 if they exceed on hour parking
It is undoubtedly Sydney's - and possibly the world's - most expensive carpark