PIPS provide Car Park Management & Security to shopping centre

Meadowhall shopping centre, opened in 1990, covers 1.5 million square foot of floor space, contains over 280 shops and caters for 24 million visitors a year, with 6 car parks holding 12,000 free parking spaces.

The ANPR system, the first of its kind supplied by PIPS, is unique in that it provides Meadowhall with a varied range of benefits. Data on traffic flow into the centre and on vehicles of interest entering car parks, can all be reported to the Meadowhall Control centre, as well as providing data to the police so that they can monitor any criminal activity around the site.

PIPS supplied and installed more than 40 of their award winning Spike cameras along with Portal and CPMS (Car Park Management System) software. Spike was the worlds first fully integrated digital ANPR camera, incorporating both the camera and the recogniser in a single sealed enclosure, making it the most affective type of camera for this system.

Meadowhall is the first shopping centre in the UK to have PIPS CPMS software installed. The software allows the Meadowhall management team to view, at the click of a button, what times are most popular for customers to visit the centre, which of their car parks are used the most and how long customers spend in the centre, as well as controlling any vehicles which enter and exit their service entrances.

Chris Breeze, the IT Manager from Meadowhall said, We are very pleased with the system
that PIPS Technology has installed. The cameras allow us to monitor the car parks and
assist with crime prevention and detection to the entire site. Allowing the police to use this
information can only make our shopping centre safer.

The data collected by the Spike cameras is passed via PIPS Portal software to the Police, which allows them to monitor any vehicles of interest moving around Meadowhall. The software also gives the police the option to view live intelligence and review data after an incident may have taken place. This can be very useful when tracing back over an event to discover what occurred and who was potentially involved.

Paul Negus, Managing Director of PIPS Technology said Shopping centres such as Meadowhall use technology to enhance its security to the site. Working with the Police and using PIPS ANPR systems contributes to a safer destination for its visitors.