License Plate Recognition (LPR) is a remarkably effective way for parking facilities to provide a better customer experience and a more secure environment, all while lowering operational costs. It’s also a key part of an integrated and high-performing dynamic pricing system - enabling more accurate session detection and occupancy monitoring.
But not all LPR technology offers the same level of quality, precision, and integration. The significant range of performance across parking LPR solutions means that many operators are actually experiencing lower capture rates, detection errors, and lost revenue from drivers who leave without paying (knowingly or not).
We’ve spent multiple years engineering, testing, and refining an in-house LPR system that combines innovative detection capabilities with best-in-class camera technology. Through this process, we’ve learned how to improve the customer experience, capture more sessions, and drive the revenue uplift that LPR should provide.
Our LPR system gives AirGarage partners a true competitive edge through industry-leading tech without the high overhead of lower quality rented camera systems. This handbook article covers our approach to LPR in greater detail, from facility evaluation to equipment installation and full deployment.
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Approach: Maximize the benefits of LPR through an integrated, in-house LPR system with best-in-class detection technology.
When our LPR offering first launched, we quickly discovered that available 3rd-party solutions didn’t deliver the precision and reliability our customers needed. Based on these early tests, we decided to develop our own technology. The result is Tripwire, a proprietary LPR system with unique detection capabilities - now used across properties managed by AirGarage.
Tripwire is an advanced LPR system that uses infrared beams and in-lane detection to precisely determine a vehicle’s location and rate of travel. Once detected, Tripwire uses the vehicle’s position and speed to trigger the camera when it’s most likely to capture the best possible image. In addition to in-house detection technology, our system also uses custom-built cameras designed specifically for LPR. The cameras are calibrated with higher frame-per-second (FPS) rates for better quality images, even when vehicles are moving fast.
Tripwire enables parking detection and image capture with the highest degree of accuracy and reliability. These LPR capabilities are unique within the parking industry, and our higher accuracy means more successful parking sessions and higher revenue.
Approach: Evaluate the suitability of your property for LPR and determine the best equipment for optimal coverage.
Before installation, we first determine how to make LPR successful at your location(s). LPR can work for multiple facility types, but the equipment may change for a parking lot or a parking garage. While parking garages typically have narrow, controlled, and well-defined entry and exit points, open parking lots may allow drivers to arrive and leave without detection. To account for the potential difficulty with open parking lots, we may combine multiple camera types and positions for full coverage.
We take a comprehensive approach that starts with capturing a full digital model of your property (when possible) to help us analyze equipment placement and recommendations. Then we’ll review exactly how traffic enters, flows through, and leaves your facility to ensure optimal coverage.
The first step is to schedule an on-site evaluation so our local regional expert can walk the facility to gather data and assess specific criteria. This process usually includes:
Next, we use this information to confirm necessary equipment, identify the best camera placement, and make any other preparations needed for equipment installation.
Approach: Complete a quick installation with existing infrastructure and power sources.
Each step of the installation process is handled by the AirGarage team, and our in-house operations team will coordinate with local contractors as necessary. Unless our team needs special access to a specific part of the facility, they can typically complete installation without any assistance or interference to normal parking operations.
The installation timeline will depend on your property’s size and complexity. Most installations are completed within 1-2 days, while larger or more complex properties may take up to a week. During this process, we’ll also coordinate with prior operators to uninstall any existing camera systems.
Thanks to features like the following, our system is straightforward to install in most facilities:
Through the installation, our team communicates continually to keep you updated on the progress status and go-live date.
Approach: Ensure the most accurate and consistent capture of parking sessions to improve the customer experience and maximize parking yield.
For property owners, the day-of transition to Tripwire LPR is seamless. We handle the adjustments needed across enforcement practices, signage, payments and other parts of your parking operations. Then, during the first 30 days of the LPR rollout, we take a hands-on approach to monitoring effectiveness and manually verifying questionable sessions or possible detection errors.
Once Tripwire is live, drivers can easily opt-in, allowing for a seamless entry and exit experience. Our system makes the opt-in process simple, fast, and intuitive - even catching license typos, notifying drivers of the issue, and prompting them to correct it. We also take a progressive approach to parking enforcement, allowing drivers to acclimate to a new process for reservation and payment.
While total revenue is typically lower on launch day (due to), it quickly normalizes as drivers opt-in and Tripwire captures full parking sessions. When your LPR system goes live, our team looks for issues like the following:
While some of these issues could require manual changes, our LPR system is intelligent enough to correct routine detection errors. For example, if an image is too low-quality to reliably detect the license plate information, our system automatically references images taken immediately before or after the first attempt. This means we can easily verify driver data using a second image, without additional processing time or manual effort.
As a revenue-share operating partner, we’re incentivized to continue optimizing our LPR system and finding new ways to maximize revenue generation. And, because we develop the Tripwire hardware and software, we can deeply integrate LPR with the full parking management system - continually using data and insights to innovate and fine-tune our approach.
These advantages significantly lower operating costs while helping us deliver stronger results and consistent long-term growth for our partners.
