How to log vehicle activity and parking violations on site

Every site with a gate, a car park or a loading bay has the same argument sooner or later: who parked there, when, and for how long. Usually nobody can answer it, because the answer is buried somewhere in a recorder nobody's watched since it was installed. A camera that reads its own footage can settle both halves of the problem, the running record of what came and went, and the alert the moment something's parked where it shouldn't be.

A log, not a plate reader

It's worth being plain about this early: Svid doesn't read number plates. There's no ANPR hardware to install and no plate database to secure. Vehicle Log describes what the camera sees instead, a blue tipper truck, a white van, a silver hatchback, and when it arrived, where it went, and how long it stayed. For most disputes about vehicle activity on site, a description and a timestamp answer the question just as well as a registration number would, and it comes from a camera you likely already have on the wall.

Two checks, run together

Vehicle Log and Parking Violation are separate checks, and a property manager or logistics site typically runs both on the same camera. Vehicle Log is the running record: every vehicle that passes, described and searchable, so "white van at the loading dock after 6pm" or "the red car that's been parked by the fence for three days" is a search rather than an afternoon with an export. Parking Violation is the alerting half. It judges a window of recent frames and flags a vehicle the moment it's somewhere it clearly shouldn't be, rather than waiting for someone to notice on a walk-round.

The disputes this settles

• A vehicle blocking a fire lane, an exit or a loading bay
• A bay overstaying its posted time limit
• A car parked across a marked restricted bay

These are examples of the kind of thing the check flags when it's clearly visible in frame, not a fixed list of violation types. It judges the scene: a vehicle stopped somewhere it obviously shouldn't be, described and timestamped, with a link to the moment. Delivery is on screen, by email, or by a generic JSON webhook into whatever runs the site.

1. 01

   Point a camera at the entrance, gate or car park

   An RTSP feed from an existing recorder, an uploaded export, or a phone signed in at app.svid.ai/live.html. A car park is a slow scene, so even the Economy watch level is usually plenty.

2. 02

   Turn on Vehicle Log for the running record

   Every vehicle the camera sees becomes a searchable entry: type, colour, arrival and departure, linked back to the footage.

3. 03

   Turn on Parking Violation for the alerting half

   It flags a vehicle blocking a fire lane, exit or loading bay, or sitting across a restricted bay, the moment it's clearly visible.

4. 04

   Try both over last month's footage first

   Recorded footage runs through the same pipeline as live, so you can see what would have been logged and flagged before committing a live camera to it.

What it costs

The Store prices Vehicle Log and Parking Violation from your own usage before you buy, each shown as the extra it would add per month at your camera count and hours watched. Both sit on a subscription priced from your own usage, floored at $9 a month, with the full derivation shown on screen at signup. A car park is a slow scene under motion gating, so the running cost tends to sit well below a busier camera watching the same hours. The checks page has the full list.

Does this read number plates?

No. There's no ANPR or LPR anywhere in Svid, deliberately. Vehicles are logged and flagged by description, type, colour and activity, not by plate number.

What counts as a parking violation?

Whatever's clearly visible: a vehicle blocking a fire lane, exit or loading bay, or parked across a marked restricted bay, are typical examples. The check judges the scene rather than checking against a fixed permit list.

Can I use just one of the two checks?

Yes. Vehicle Log and Parking Violation are bought and enabled separately, though a site with both a running-record need and a violation problem usually runs them together on the same camera.

Does it integrate with a barrier or ticketing system?

No dedicated integration exists. Alerts can reach a generic JSON webhook, which sites typically point at whatever system they already run, but there's no barrier control or automated ticketing built in.