A new licence plate recognition system will be tested next week and then will start being used to enforce the free-parking time limits in the Tauranga city centre.

The Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) system is a set of high-resolution cameras mounted onto a roving vehicle.

The cameras capture licence plates and GPS location details of parked cars.

A statement issued by Tauranga City Council says LPR will give the council accurate information about parking occupancy, which will be used to help assess how the free parking trial has worked when staff report back to the council in November.

“The two-hour free-parking trial has led to a lot of car shuffling, with people parking for two hours then moving to another free parking space for the next two hours.”

The statement says all on-street car parking in the city centre has a two hour time limit.

“Then you must move your vehicle to a paid parking area.”

The LPR will identify vehicles that are parked anywhere in the city centre free-parking zone for more than two hours.

It will calculate the total time that each vehicle has been parked in the free-parking zone over the course of that day.

“You won’t receive a physical ticket on the same day as the parking offence,” says the statement.

“Infringements captured by the licence plate technology will be identified at the end of the day and parking tickets will be posted to the registered vehicle owner.

What does this mean for people who drive into the city centre?

•   •  If you need to park for longer than two hours, use the parking buildings or one of the off-street paid-parking areas.

•   •  There is no option to pay for extra parking in the free-parking zones.

•   •  Parking officers on foot will continue to monitor mobility parks, broken yellow lines and short term parking spaces (P15, P30 and P60).