ANCP introduces licence plate recognition at Barkly Square

On Monday 8th April 2013, Barkly Square changed over from a 3 hour "pay and display" system, to an automatic Licence Plate Recognition system. The new automatic system has the power to read one number plate per second (or 3,600 plates per hour) and thus has the power to detect and penalise thousands more drivers per day than the old manual system.

How the new system works.

The new automatic system has a single ANCP employee doing two or more sweeps of the Barkly Square car park driving a car mounted with a camera and computer. On the first pass of the car park, a photograph is taken of the licence plate of every vehicle that is parked in the car park. On a subsequent pass, the system takes a second set of photos. The on-board computer system has software than can read and decipher the letters and numbers on the license plates. If the computer recognises a car has overstayed the 3 hour limit, the ANCP patrol car driver is immediately alerted and he/she issues a payment notice to the relevant vehicle. This way, the ANCP employee only needs to get out of his/her car once an infringement is detected, thus allowing more efficient use of human time and thus more fines to be issued per day compared to under the old system. The ANCP employee then proceeds to place an infringement notice on the infringing vehicle's windscreen. The ANCP employee makes the decision on whether to fine a driver without any reference to a ticket displayed on the windscreen which are not required any more.

Privacy concerns

Shoppers I have spoken to are concerned with the privacy implications of the new system. The new system takes photos of all cars in the car park, not just those that have been detected breaching the terms and conditions. Thus, a photo of your car and your licence plate is held on file by ANCP, even though you may have done nothing wrong. It seems to be "guilty until proven innocent".

The new system makes it harder to prove your innoncence

Another concern with the new system is that you no longer have a ticket to prove that you were a legitmate parker. Under the old system, you had a ticket which, if you kept it, proved you complied with the terms and conditions of the car park - i.e. the ticket was your receipt. In the event that a shopper received a fine in the mail some time down the track (as seemed to happen only too often), the shopper could go back thru their old tickets and then send in a photocopy to ANCP head office to prove they hand complied with the terms and conditions. However, the new system does not issue tickets for the free period, so you have no way of proving your innonence should you receive a fine in the mail some time down the track. Under the new system ANCP holds all the aces and it will be ANCP's word versus yours that you had exceeded the 3 hour free limit. Shoppers I spoke to were not happy about this and did not trust Australian National Car Parks to issue the infringement notices fairly.

What are the advantages of the new system?Well there are plenty of advantages to ANCP. They can fine more people per day than they used to able to under the manual system, and the shopper can no longer has a ticket to keep as proof of their compliance with the terms and conditions. Make no mistake, ANCP have spent tens of thousands of dollars on the new technology, and are expecting to re-coup that investment with a higher fine rate than under the old system. So does the new system have any advantages to the shoppers themselves? Well, there is one small advantage which is that someone new to the car park who wasn't aware that a ticket is required for the free period no longer needs to obtain a ticket. However, for most regular shoppers and locals who knew about the requirement to obtain and a display a ticket, the new system offers no advantages at all to shoppers, and plenty of disadvantages.

Why is there an option to pay for the 4th hour?

The new system allows a fourth hour of parking to be purchased for $5.00. If you want to stay beyond the 3 hour free period, you must obtain a ticket from the machine for $5.00 and place it on your windscreen, just like under the old system. A number of people have asked me why ANCP have introduced a fourth hour for $5.00 as it just seems to confuse things. Previously you could buy an extended period of parking by parking for up to 6 hours at the back of the car park well away from shops. However, any shopper can now buy the fourth hour and park anywhere in the car park. Why have ANCP done this? The answer is farily simple. In the past, ANCP have been criticised by the government and legal professionals for fining people who had only availed themselves of free parking. The question directed to ANCP in the past was how can you be fined for parking in a car park that was free - since the car park owner could have suffered no loss, how could there be a penalty? So now they have introduced a 4th hour for $5.00. Only if you exceed the fourth hour do you get fined, and so now drivers cannot claim they had only availed of free parking. So it now makes it theoretically easier for ANCP to fine people, and this is the reason why, in my opiinion, they have introduced the fourth paid hour to apply anywhere in the car park.

Three hours of continuous parking?

The original 3 options for fines are on this page of my website. These three options still apply. However, the new system introduces a fourth option. You see, the new terms and conditions allow a driver to park for 3 hours within a single 24 hour period. The patrol car comes once, photographs your car, then comes again say 3.5 hours later and fines you, because they assume you have parked there continuously for 3.5 hours. However, it is quite possible you might not have been there continuously, you might have gone home after one hour, realised you had forgotten something and come back to the car park 2 hours later to the same parking spot. So you have only been parking there for 1.5 hours in total and not 3.5 hours when they fined you. In this case, you simply ask ANCP for proof that you have parked there for 3.5 hours continuously, and they won't be able to provide it, as they only have 2 photos of your car, at the start and end of the 3.5 hour period, but nothing in the middle.

Additional links

Read the two page Barkly Square flyer introducing the technology.

For a description of how the technology works, see my page on Council Parking Fines.

See photos of signs in the car park and the new terms and conditions.

Youtube of TMS's number plate scanning system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si3AZSrV55k

Secure Parking in Australia http://sensordynamics.com.au/case-studies/secure-p

Reduced grace period processing http://sensordynamics.com.au/case-studies/westfield/