Identifying cars violating parking rules: Here's what you should be aware of - Identifying Cars of Parking Violators: A Must-Know Fact
Germany Introduces Scan Vehicles for Parking Controls: A New Era of Efficiency and Road Safety
In a significant step towards modernising parking enforcement, the city of Heidelberg is set to become the first in Germany to deploy a scan vehicle for combating parking violations. This move follows the enactment of a new law in March, which paves the way for the use of such technology in Baden-Württemberg.
Scan vehicles, equipped with cameras, can capture license plates of parked cars and compare them with a database, making controls faster and more efficient. One scan vehicle can control up to 1,000 vehicles per hour, a stark contrast to the approximately 50 vehicles that can be controlled when done manually.
The technology, already in use in France and the Netherlands, has consistently received positive feedback. In Amsterdam, the costs for controlling parking spaces have been reduced by half. Minister of Transport Winfried Hermann hopes for more road safety due to the use of scan vehicles, as every fifth inner-city accident is related to illegal parking.
Scan vehicles can check if a driver has paid for a parking ticket, has a resident parking permit, and can detect illegal parkers. They are designed to capture an image of the parked car, its license plate, location, and time of the check. Incorrectly parked cars' data is stored for the duration of the fine procedure and then deleted. Correctly parked cars' data is immediately deleted.
The use of scan vehicles in Hohenheim, Stuttgart, resulted in high efficiency, with all 1,237 parking spaces checked three times within 75 minutes, and 40 suspected violations detected. A foot patrol would have needed seven hours for the same controls.
Cities such as Mannheim, Freiburg, and Waldshut-Tiengen are also planning to adopt the technology, with Mannheim eyeing a fourth-quarter 2025 deployment, and Freiburg and Waldshut-Tiengen aiming for the first half of 2026. However, the Ministry of Transport has not provided information about other cities in Germany where scan vehicles are already in use.
It's worth noting that pedestrians are automatically pixelated by the system, and scan vehicles should be signposted and clearly marked. The city of Düsseldorf has been testing a scan vehicle since August, but its use is limited due to a lack of legal basis in North Rhine-Westphalia. Until the first quarter of 2026, no fines will be issued based on data from the scan vehicle in Heidelberg.
Control forces in the Netherlands are less exposed to harassment through the technology, and the costs for controlling parking spaces have seen a significant reduction. The city of Heidelberg's deployment of a scan vehicle marks a promising step towards a more streamlined and safer parking environment in Germany.
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