Forgetting where one’s car is in a large parking facility is time consuming and frustrating. Moreover, the inconvenience is compounded when you have just disembarked from a long flight. Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan is using Etrovision’s EtroGate ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) system to help drivers quickly and conveniently find their cars in the airport’s parking facility. The airport’s parking facility has over 2,000 parking spaces which are managed by the Etrovision ANPR system. The EtroGate ANPR system is part of Etrovision's EtroCenter VMS (Video Management System). The ANPR feature is an advanced option available in the EtroGate access control system.

Using IP surveillance cameras, the system captures the license plate number upon entering the parking facility. Subsequently, the cameras also capture and store the car’s eventual parking spot location in EtroGate’s ANPR database. Each parking space has an associated camera to track the car parked in that space. Customers can then access kiosks to look-up where their car is in the parking facility using their parking ticket or by the license plate number.

A CCTV system was originally proposed for the project, but Etrovision’s ANPR solution with IP cameras were determined to be more cost effective when all factors were considered. Not only did the CCTV system require more servers (1 PC/32 cameras) than EtroGate’s ANPR system (1 ANPR Server/100 cameras), but the CCTV system also required video capture cards for the PCs which were not needed for the EtroGate ANPR servers.

A considerable amount of coaxial cable also would have been required for the CCTV system. Although the Etrovision system required more network cabling, using PoE (Power Over Ethernet) reduced the amount of cabling required. In addition, the CCTV system’s power consumption would have also been far higher than Etrovision’s ANPR solution. Taking into account installation and operational costs, the Etrovision EtroGate ANPR system costs 40% less than comparable CCTV systems.

Advantages
1. Extremely accurate and efficient ANPR solution for large parking facilities.
2. Lower installation and maintenance costs
3. 40% lower total cost of ownership versus CCTV systems
4. Easily integrated with Etrovision’s EtroCenter VMS