Number plate recognition
The plate reader (OCR) runs on the phone. A plate is accepted only once it reads consistently across several frames, and Romanian formats and county codes are validated.
Parking enforcement · Wheel clamping
Parking payment verification for enforcement officers and wheel-clamping teams
We built a system that answers one question quickly and reliably: has this car paid for parking? The officer scans the number plate with a phone, the server checks every payment platform in the city in parallel and returns a single verdict. The same app drives a controlled wheel-clamping workflow, and management follows it all in real time.
- Four payment sources checked in parallel
- A source that's down never means “unpaid”
- Clamping workflow with re-verification
Problem
The problem: parking payments live in four different places
The payment app, SMS payments, cards and season tickets, parking meters: each platform has its own account, interface and logic. To find out whether a car has paid, an officer has to open them one by one.
- Slow: four accounts and four windows for every car checked.
- Error-prone: one forgotten platform means a paid car gets treated as unpaid.
- Costly: wrongly clamping a car costs more than missing one.
- Cases travel between officers and clamping crews over phone calls and chat groups, with no control and no evidence.
Solution
The solution: one number plate, four sources checked in parallel
The officer types or scans the number plate and the server queries every payment source at the same time: the payment app, SMS payments, cards and season tickets, and parking meters. Each platform has its own adapter and a timeout, so one that's down doesn't hold up the others. Adding a platform means writing a new adapter, not a new application.
The result is a single verdict, generated on the server and identical in the phone and web apps: Paid (a valid payment right now, with the time left), Unpaid (every source answered and none found a payment), Expired today, Scheduled (paid, but valid later, such as tomorrow's season ticket) or Not verified. The safety rule is simple: a source that doesn't answer never turns into “unpaid”. The officer can see the check was incomplete and doesn't jump to the wrong conclusion.
Features
Key features
From checking a payment on the street to reports for management.
Corrections confirmed by the officer
If OCR changed a character (O/0, I/1), the officer compares it with the plate before the check, so the wrong number never gets verified.
Clear, colour-coded verdict
Paid, Unpaid, Expired, Scheduled or Not verified, with the time left or since expiry and Copy, Share and Next car buttons.
Two Android apps
“Parcare” for enforcement officers and “Blocator” for clamping crews, distributed internally as an APK to work phones rather than through a public app store.
Six-step clamping workflow
Sent (with 2 photos and GPS location), notified, claimed by the first crew, en route (with navigation and distance), re-verified without cache right before clamping, then clamped and closed (towed or released).
“Paid in the meantime – don't clamp”
If a payment shows up on re-verification, the case cancels itself and the crew is warned. If payment can't be verified, clamping is refused.
Real-time dashboard
Alerts when a platform goes down or a case sits unclaimed too long, today's figures against yesterday and the same day last week, per-platform health, the non-payment rate and incomplete checks.
Case funnel and patrol map
How many cases reach each stage, how long claiming and clamping take, how many were paid in the meantime, plus a map of checked areas (grouped into roughly 100 m cells) and where unpaid cars turn up.
Six Excel reports
Overview, checks, cases, people, register and system, for today, 7 days, a month, a year or a custom range, ready to print.
Users, roles and permissions
Administrator, officer and clamping-crew roles, permissions by category (overview, reports, people, plates, export, system) with presets, and 30-day activity per user.
Audit log
Events written as plain sentences, grouped by day, with access to number plates listed separately.
Adapters for any platform
Works with platforms that offer an API and with those that only have a web interface, all mapped to one response format: period, zone and amount.
Security
Security and personal data protection (GDPR)
Number plates and photos are personal data, so the system was built for them from the start rather than retrofitted.
Secure access
HTTPS connections, passwords stored only as hashes, expiring sessions, temporary lockout after failed attempts and a temporary password that must be changed at first sign-in.
No open ports
Outside access goes through a secure tunnel with no open firewall ports, plus an extra authentication layer in front of the app on top of each user's own account.
Data kept only as long as needed
Checked plates are kept for 12 months, after which only aggregate figures remain. Case photos are deleted after 90 days and drafts after 24 hours.
No customer contact details
Customer emails and phone numbers held by the payment platforms are neither displayed nor stored.
Protected phones
The screen blocks screenshots and stays hidden in recent apps, and the session is stored encrypted. If a phone is lost, the account is deactivated from the web interface and access is revoked.
Server-side permissions
Every request is checked on the server; anything not allowed is never even computed, and exports contain only what the user may see, with rate limits.
Deployment
Deployment: connecting to the city's platforms
We start with a pilot in a chosen area, using the payment sources the city already has.
- 1
Pick sources and zones
We list the payment platforms in use and decide who gets which access.
- 2
Connect the platforms
We build one adapter per platform, with automated tests on the verdict rules and on every adapter.
- 3
Train the teams
We create the accounts and train enforcement officers and clamping crews on both apps.
- 4
Pilot and report
A few weeks in the field, followed by a report built on the dashboard figures. Monitoring shows each platform's error rate and response time straight away.
What we need from you
- Operator accounts on every payment platform in use
- Provider cooperation: ideally an API or a service account
- A server on your own network or in a cloud of your choice
- A GDPR agreement between the parties for access to platform data
Gallery
Screenshots
Screenshots from the demo environment with synthetic data. Number plates, platform names and IP addresses are blurred.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What happens if a payment platform doesn't respond?
The verdict becomes “Not verified”, never “Unpaid”. The officer sees the check is incomplete, and no clamping case can be created from an incomplete check.
How do you prevent wrongful wheel clamping?
The server only creates a case if it finds the car unpaid or expired, and payment is checked again without cache right before clamping. If a payment has appeared in the meantime, the case cancels itself.
Does it work with the payment platforms we already use?
Yes. We write an adapter for each platform, whether it has an API or only a web interface. Some platforms without an API may need periodic sign-ins, for example those protected by reCAPTCHA.
Can plates be read automatically from a patrol car?
Not in the current version. Automatic reading from a patrol car, with mandatory confirmation by the officer, is a possible extension under consideration.
Want a similar solution for your organisation?
We'll walk you through the software and tailor it to your processes. Write to us or call 0740 902 102.
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