Wellington City Council is introducing four new cars with the latest licence plate recognition technology (LPR) to its parking services fleet, to improve fair access to parking in the city.

The Council receives an average of 1100 complaints a month of illegal parking, for offences such as parking in residents’ areas without a permit and overstaying. The new vehicles will enable parking officers to be in more places, more often. They’ll increase the efficiency and consistency of the Council’s parking enforcement and also be used to gather parking survey data to help plan for the city's parking needs.

Budget for the vehicles was approved as part of Wellington’s 2021 Long-term Plan.

James Roberts, the Council’s Chief Operating Officer says: “Our parking policy is designed to manage parking pressures over the next 10 to 20 years as our city grows. Licence plate recognition vehicles are the next step in our technology evolution to a more efficient way of enforcing parking.”

LPR vehicles are successfully operating in Auckland, Hamilton, and Tauranga.

The cars will be fitted with the latest LPR cameras and technology to capture images and video relating to parked vehicles and the corresponding parking signage. They will be clearly identified as Wellington City Council Parking Services vehicles.

The cars will operate within the requirements of the Privacy Act. Images and video will be used by the Council only for enforcement, evidential, and occupancy survey purposes.

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Cars will be tested on-road from late June-September this year. From October they will be out doing parking surveys and used for parking enforcement of resident parking areas; in Kelburn, Kilbirnie, Mount Cook, Mount Victoria, Newtown/Berhampore, Te Aro, Thorndon, Miramar, and Clifton. Parking tickets will be issued by post to any illegally parked vehicles.

Use of the cars will then be expanded to include enforcement of metered and other restricted parking in the city.

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