ANPR INSIGHTS #2

WHY YOU NEED A WELL-PLANNED STAFF ANPR CAR PARK POLICY

If there is one thing that sets us Brits apart from our EU neighbours its our independent thinking when it comes to our individual ability to interpret and exploit weak or unclear guidelines.  We see it with COVID rules and in many Corporate Car Parks

A few years ago, I had the pleasure to work with an in-house ANPR Project Team at a famous watch HQ facility in Geneva who wanted to use ANPR to track vehicles within their multi-level, underground car park.  A key part of their plan was to have a GUI for reception staff to allocate a Visitor a specific bay number as part of the registration process.

(Don’t forget that control of what vehicles are allowed in any underground car park where large staff numbers are in the building above is a prime security concern)

 

The client team were engineers and had been very thorough in their planning and preparation for the Project meeting, but I knew I had rocked their confidence a little from their concerned expressions when I said I saw a potential issue.  I explained that during my arrival, I was checked-in at reception and allocated a parking bay on level -3.  Driving down into the bowels of the car park I had driven from ground level through -1 and -2 to get to my allocated bay number on -3. I noticed that there were free car parking bays on the higher levels that were also located nearer to the lifts.

One of the team asked so what’s the issue? ”When I said that I could have just parked in a more convenient space and this would throw out their bay allocation system they look at each other and then back at me as if I were an alien.  Then, after a pause, the team leader said  “but Frank, this is Switzerland and we would never do that!”

So, cultures can and do vary and in the UK it has been my experience that some staff will mess around with any new car park regime and not necessarily in a malicious way, but just to test out the system’s limits and to see if what happens.  This is done sometimes for their own amusement and sometimes to see if they can defeat or push the limits of the system.

 

Planning Your Car Park Policy & Staff Engagement

You may already have a Car Park Policy, but if you are installing ANPR to control or manage your Staff Car Park then this is a different game and you should have a more comprehensive pre-considered rule set that should cover all foreseeable events.  The main challenge of course is that the real challenge is from the drivers, their behaviour and attitudes and not their vehicles.

ANPR controlled Staff Car Parks can often get a little complicated when we begin to experience what can happen and we need house rules in place to support the order that we wish to achieve.

Here are just some of the things that you might want to cover with your Policy / Rules…

  • What will you do when your Staff park in Visitor or Customer Car Parks?
  • Staff may arrive in their partner’s vehicle, how will you manage this?
  • What will happen if an ANPR system cannot read an illegal plate?
  • Do you have vehicles arriving from Europe?
  • Do you have more Staff than available Spaces, and if so how can this be managed?
  • How can you minimise the admin overhead with more complex systems?
  • Is it okay if a member of Staff arrives in an oversized Winibago?

This is just a sample of the common challenges that can happen and it is better to be plan, be prepared and to fully engage with your staff than to deal with one issue after another. Staff engagement is key to the success of the implementation of any ANPR controlled corporate car park and this should not be overlooked.

 

Engage with Staff Early to Get Their Buy-In

staff car parking ANPR

Do You Get Unwelcome Visitors?

Golf car parked ANPRANPR can provide an extra layer of security for your facility and can provide alerts for unknown vehicles.

Known or suspicious vehicles that you have placed on your watch list will provide email / smartphone alerts when they next drive onto site.

 

 

About Us

We work with clients who need independent advice from initial project scoping to implementation and handover and everything in-between.

With our experience and insight, we can draft your own Corporate ANPR Car Park Policy and help you avoid most of the foreseeable challenges.

We have first-hand experience of this and all other ANPR documentation and technology and we can work for you on an ‘as needed’ basis and help and guide your internal team to a successful outcome.

Find out more…

 

ANPR INSIGHT SERIES

This series of articles will cover a range of key topics and challenges relating to especially workplace parking challenges and the introduction of ANPR to manage staff, visitor, deliveries etc to your site.

Some of the planned topics to be covered will include …

Corporate HQ / Campus Parking – Why You Need an ANPR Consultant

Multi-Tenanted Business Parking – Where do you Start?

Is Your Car Park ANPR Ready?

ANPR as an Extra Security Layer for Your Facility

ANPR as a plug-in for Commercial Vehicle Logistics & Distribution Management

 

The author of this article is Frank Thomson, Principal Consultant at COGTEX ANPR Consultants

E frank.thomson@cogtex.com

M +44 (0)7968 096486