Munich airport deploys license plate recognition system

Published 22 February 2007

GeoVision wins the conract to improve the airport’s parking control system; license plates are scanned on entrance and exit, thereby obviating the need for tickets and cutting down on personnel; frequent fliers rejoice

The market for license plate recognition systems (LPRs) is showing no sign of slowing down. Earlier this month, for instance, we reported that the city of San Francisco had deployed LPRs to crackdown on parking ticket scofflaws, and readers will also recall that a similar system is used at the Mexican border to process cars entering the United States. Now we can report on another victory for this fast-growing industry: Munich International Airport — Germany’s second-busiest, serving nearly 30 million passengers in 2005 — has installed an LPR manufactured by Taiwan-based GeoVision. Unlike the other cases, however, this usage is not law enforcement-related. Rather, airport authorities are hoping to improve the efficiuency of the parking lots.

How it works: relying on neural network technology and designed to work with the airport’s online car park booking service and car park fence systems, the system captures number plates from entrances and exits, which are then processed and checked against the airport’s parking database. If the plate numbers match the database, the fence will open to allow passage, thereby reducing the handling costs at the airport parking and preventing a passenger from claiming to have lost his ticket. (An additional scan of the plate will tell the authorties the exact time he entered the lot.) The system’s biggest fans? Business travellers who detest having to hold on to parking slips as they travel the world. “They’re happy about the convenience and time efficiency results of the advanced system,” said a GeoVision spokesman. “When you save time for your customers, you save money for them. In return, they keep coming back and make more money for you. The return of investment is very high.”

-read more in this company news release