Bournemouth’s Castlepoint Shopping Park installed its £56,000 Automatic Number-plate Recognition (ANPR) System in April. Since then the small black cameras that guard every vehicle entrance have counted all the traffic in and out. Peter Matthews, General Manager at Castlepoint, the UK’s largest shopping park, says that the ANPR is more than just another deterrent added to the existing 150 security cameras that allow the security team to keep 800 yards of shopping mall safe on the 41 acre site.
“The ANPR gives us an unobtrusive and automatic feed of statistics showing the habits of visitors who travel by car,” said Peter Matthews. “We can now see shopping patterns emerging as the system will tell us the date and time that a vehicle arrives and departs the park. So we can now gather statistics on the number of times a vehicle visits us each month, the preferred time of visit and the average length of time of the stay. It reduces the need to survey our shoppers for much of the basic information.”
In April just over 360,000 visits were made by car. 60% of those were repeat visitors. The highest number of vehicles in the 3000 space car park at one time was 2,628.
But the system does support the security teams attempts to ensure that the free parking is not abused. Peter Matthews says that a small minority of able bodied drivers are still too lazy to walk a short distance and will use the 180 disabled parking spaces without displaying appropriate passes or badges.
“Those caught are fined and the money is ring-fenced to enhance facilities for the disabled and support the Shopmobility service. Those offenders who do not pay the fine or repeatedly park unauthorised in disabled spaces are entered into the ANPR. The security team is then alerted when the vehicle returns to Castlepoint. They can then be clamped.”
The system can also be accessed by the Police and often vehicles known to be operated by criminals, even persistent shoplifters, are able to be highlighted when entry to the car park occurs.
“Its definitely not big brother. We just want to ensure that Castlepoint remains the “convenient high street” - popular, clean, safe and an easy place to visit and shop,” said Peter Matthews.
