Genetec, a provider of parking enforcement and public safety solutions, has unveiled Plate Link, a new feature for its AutoVu automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) software. Plate Link acts as a force multiplier for parking enforcement officers, allowing them to administer shared permits and time-limited parking bylaws across multiple zones more efficiently.

Managing shared parking permits (where several vehicles share a single permit) can be a complex and time-consuming task. To identify a shared permit violation, a single parking enforcement vehicle would typically need to see both cars sharing a permit to detect that they were both in the lot at the same time. With AutoVu Plate Link, any patrol vehicle can detect violations using license plate data collected by other connected vehicles. This helps increase the rate of detection and simplifies the assignment of patrol routes.

It allows two separate patrol vehicles to be assigned to a zone and work in unison as if they were a single vehicle. Each license plate scanned by a vehicle is automatically transferred to the next vehicle that enters the zone. By working together, the first patrol vehicle captures the license plate information initially, and should a violation occur, it will be detected by the second patrol vehicle making a subsequent pass. The first patrol vehicle doesn’t have to circle back after the time-limit has elapsed. Using the same vehicle data eliminates the need to circle back to an assigned zone, and boosts capture rates.