ANPR for caravan parks: the complete guide

ANPR — Automatic Number Plate Recognition — uses a camera at the entry to read a vehicle's number plate and match it against your bookings. If the plate belongs to a guest with an active stay, the boom lifts automatically. There's no card to swipe, no fob to hand out, and no app for the guest to download.

For a park, the plate effectively becomes the key — and because it's tied to a booking, that key expires on its own at check-out.

Day to day, it's three steps:

1. A guest books. Their vehicle registration is captured in your booking system when they reserve.
2. SmartParks syncs the booking to the gate. Flow ANPR registers the plate (and a backup PIN) for the length of the stay — no data entry for your team.
3. The guest arrives and drives in. The camera reads the plate, confirms the booking is active, and opens the gate. At check-out, access ends automatically.

• Less work for reception. No printing cards, handing out fobs, chasing lost remotes, or re-keying details — access follows the booking.
• A better arrival. Guests drive straight in after a long tow, instead of queuing at an office window.
• Tighter security. Only current guests get in, and access ends at check-out. Optional anti-passback stops one booking's access being shared around a whole convoy.
• No lost-credential problem. There's no card or fob to lose, copy, or forget to return.

The magic is in the sync. SmartParks connects directly to your property management system so the gate always reflects your live bookings — nothing is entered twice. We integrate with the systems Australian parks actually run on:

• RMS Cloud gate access & ANPR
• NewBook gate access & ANPR

See the full integrations overview for how the booking-to-gate connection works.

No system reads every plate every time — a plate can be muddy, bent, or the guest might arrive in a hire car. That's why every booking also gets a unique PIN as a backup. The guest enters it at the keypad and the gate opens, so nobody is ever stuck at the boom. If you'd rather start with PIN-only access and add cameras later, that's exactly what Flow Access is for — it upgrades to ANPR without replacing anything.

Usually not much. Flow works with any boom gate or automated gate on the Australian market that accepts a relay contact input, so your existing gates and installer stay in the picture. If new cameras or a gate are needed, your local installer handles that first — then we activate the software. It's software-led, so you're not buying a locked-in proprietary box.

Flow ANPR is a monthly software subscription per park, rather than a big up-front hardware purchase. That keeps the entry cost low and means the platform keeps improving without you re-buying anything. See pricing for current plans, or get a quote for your park.