TRANSPORT & ASSETS / SMART PARKING & GUIDANCE
Car Park Occupancy Cameras and Counting (UK)
Guide drivers to the empty bay without reading a plate
The short answer
How do you count free car park spaces without a sensor in every bay?
Count vehicles in and out at the entrance rather than sensing each bay. A Milesight VS361 is £40.40 ex VAT and an X1 sensing camera from £62.85, so a deck is covered for the price of a handful of in-ground pucks. We do not supply per-bay sensors.
Drivers circling for a space jam your decks, frustrate customers, burn fuel and hide whether you actually need more capacity or just better guidance. Manual counts and barrier tallies tell you a total, not which bays are free or whether your accessible spaces are being misused. You need bay-level occupancy you can trust, indoor and outdoor, that drives red/green guidance and live counts, without turning a car park into an ANPR surveillance system unless you have specifically chosen to.
Talk through your site ● Answered within one working day
The difference
Car park occupancy camera: what changes the day it goes live
Drivers circling for a space jam your decks, frustrate customers, burn fuel and hide whether you actually need more capacity or just better guidance. Manual counts and barrier tallies tell you a total, not which bays are free or whether your accessible spaces are being misused. You need bay-level occupancy you can trust, indoor and outdoor, that drives red/green guidance and live counts, without turning a car park into an ANPR surveillance system unless you have specifically chosen to.
- Live bay-level occupancy across decks and zones, so drivers are guided straight to a free space instead of circling
- Red/green over-bay indicators and zone counts that cut search time and smooth the flow into and out of the car park
- Accessible-bay monitoring that flags misuse and shows availability to the people who actually need those spaces
- Honest occupancy data for capacity and tariff decisions, anonymous bay detection, no number-plate capture unless you ask for it
What you get
- 01
Live bay-level occupancy across decks and zones, so drivers are guided straight to a free space instead of circling
- 02
Red/green over-bay indicators and zone counts that cut search time and smooth the flow into and out of the car park
- 03
Accessible-bay monitoring that flags misuse and shows availability to the people who actually need those spaces
- 04
Honest occupancy data for capacity and tariff decisions, anonymous bay detection, no number-plate capture unless you ask for it
What we can and cannot supply for parking
What this covers
Overhead camera-based bay guidance for indoor car parks, where one unit covers several bays, plus barrier and access-adjacent sensing.
What it does not
Per-bay in-ground magnetic or radar pucks. We do not stock a ground-mounted single-bay sensor, and a camera covering three bays is a different product with different civils, not a cheaper version of one.
If your scheme is specified around in-ground pucks we are not the right supplier for the sensing layer, and we will tell you that on the first call rather than the third.
The full stack, applied here
A bay frees up, drivers guided without a plate
Every Indiott build runs all five layers as one accountable system. Follow a single bay freed from the sensor that catches it to the report that proves it.
Guidance cameras detect multiple bays each with on-device AI and no plate capture, while occupancy sensors count bays where a camera is not warranted.
Hands an occupancy read to CONNECT ↓
LoRaWAN and wired backhaul carry bay and zone counts from across the decks to a gateway you own, resilient through concrete and with no per-sensor SIM.
Hands a live count to SECURE ↓
A VPN router isolates the camera and sensor network and tunnels counts encrypted, so a public-facing car park does not expose its devices to the open internet.
Hands a trusted feed to CONTROL ↓
Counts drive the physical estate: remote IO switches red or green over-bay indicators, entrance signs and barriers so guidance follows real occupancy.
Hands a live cue to MANAGE ↓
Counts roll up into a live availability dashboard that feeds wayfinding signage, flags accessible-bay misuse and reports peak occupancy and dwell.
The loop is closed ✓
How teams start
From a single pilot to the whole portfolio
You do not boil the ocean. Nearly every rollout runs the same four moves, and you own a working, evidenced result at the end of the first one.
Scope & risk map
We walk the sites, list the assets and pin the one constraint that matters, then agree what a good result looks like before a single sensor is bought.
Pilot on one site
A focused set of sensors goes onto one site or asset group, live on our telemetry and dashboards, wired to the people who need the alert.
Validate & standardise
We tune thresholds, kill false positives, confirm the integration into your SCADA, BMS or CAFM, and write the standard design down so it repeats.
Scale the portfolio
The proven design rolls out across the estate, reusing the same hardware standards and data models so every site reads the same way.
The car park occupancy camera kit we deploy
Full catalogue
Milesight VS361 Storefront Footfall Sensor
£40.40 ex VAT
Milesight X1 Sensing Camera
£62.85 ex VAT
Milesight VS350 Passage People Counter
£74.82 ex VAT
Milesight VS351 Thermopile People Counter
£118.21 ex VAT
Milesight VS360 IR Breakbeam People Counter
£127.19 ex VAT
Milesight VS135 Ultra ToF People Counter
£568.61 ex VAT
Car park occupancy camera costs between £40.40 and £568.61 ex VAT in the UK. Indiott published prices, September 2026. Delivery is charged by weight; VAT is added at checkout.
| Model | Key specification | Price ex VAT | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milesight VS361 Storefront Footfall Sensor VS361-868M | Detection Distance (unobstructed): 1 - 9 m, adjustable via knob | £40.40 ex VAT (£48.48 inc. VAT) | In stock, UK · dispatched within 14 working days |
| Milesight X1 Sensing Camera X1 | Mounting (capture) distance: 10 ~ 20 cm with PN:1020 lens; 5 ~ 10 cm with PN:0510 lens | Price range: £62.85 through £104.74 ex VAT (£75.42 – £125.69 inc. VAT) | In stock, UK · dispatched within 14 working days |
| Milesight VS350 Passage People Counter VS350-868M | Detection range (passage width): Ceiling mount: 3.1 m passage width at 3 m height; wall mount: under 2.3 m | £74.82 ex VAT (£89.78 inc. VAT) | In stock, UK · dispatched within 14 working days |
| Milesight VS351 Thermopile People Counter VS351-868M | Detection width at installation height: 3.6 m at 3 m installation height (installation height range 2 m ~ 3 m) | Price range: £118.21 through £148.14 ex VAT (£141.85 – £177.77 inc. VAT) | In stock, UK · dispatched within 14 working days |
| Milesight VS360 IR Breakbeam People Counter VS360-868M | Detection Range: 1.2 m ~ 3 m (installation height 0.7 m ~ 1.2 m) | £127.19 ex VAT (£152.63 inc. VAT) | In stock, UK · dispatched within 14 working days |
| Milesight VS135 Ultra ToF People Counter VS135 | Detection range / maximum installation height: Standard 0.5 ~ 3.5 m (mount ≤3.5 m); High Ceiling Mount 2 ~ 6.5 m (mount ≤6.5 m) | Price range: £568.61 through £691.31 ex VAT (£682.33 – £829.57 inc. VAT) | In stock, UK · dispatched within 14 working days |
Brands in this kit: Milesight
Why Indiott
A specialist stack, not a box-shifter
Brand-agnostic by design
We pick the best of each brand for the layer and the environment, not one vendor catalogue. Milesight, AquaIoT, Atop, Browan, SpecSens and Urban.io, chosen on merit.
The whole stack, one supplier
Sensing, connectivity, OT security, control and the dashboard come from one accountable team, so there is no finger-pointing when something needs to talk to something else.
Specified and supported in Britain
UK-based engineers scope the site, quote the kit and stand behind it, with compliance mapped to the regimes your auditors actually cite.
Honest kit, honest pricing
Prices are shown where we can, quoted fast where we cannot, and you get a straight answer and a bill of materials within one working day.
DEPLOYED IN THE FIELD
Compliance this answers to
| Standard | What it requires |
|---|---|
| UK GDPR | guidance-camera bay detection is anonymous occupancy sensing, it counts whether a bay is full, it does not read or store number plates or identify drivers, so there is no ANPR processing unless you specifically commission it |
| Accessible-bay monitoring | dedicated detection and reporting on disabled bays so availability is visible and misuse is flagged |
| Wayfinding and guidance signage | occupancy data drives compliant entrance and per-zone guidance signs that meet operator and council standards |
What it costs, roughly
A guidance pilot for a single deck, multi-bay guidance cameras with over-bay indicators on the busiest rows, occupancy sensors on the rest, a gateway and an availability dashboard, typically runs in the low-to-mid five figures, scaling with bay count and how many rows get camera-grade indicators versus count-only sensing. A whole multi-deck site with full signage is costed per deck and per sign. Exact figures come back, against your bay count, deck layout and signage scope, within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
Camera or in-ground sensor: which detects a bay?
An overhead AI camera is usually more cost-effective because one unit covers several bays. The X1 sensing camera (from £62.85 ex VAT) detects occupancy across a field of view and reports it, avoiding one sensor per bay and the road works of in-ground units. In-ground magnetic sensors suit scattered outdoor bays where no mounting height exists.
How do drivers get guided to a free space?
Per-bay indicator lights, red for occupied and green for free, let drivers see availability along an aisle. Combined with zone and level counts on a display at the entrance, this cuts the time spent searching, which is where most car park congestion comes from.
Does it report live occupancy to a system or app?
Yes. Occupancy and counts are reported over the network to your platform, so a display board, website or app can show live spaces by level or zone. Because the data is available northbound, you integrate it with existing signage or a city parking app rather than being limited to a closed system.
Can it handle an open-air or multi-storey car park?
Yes. AI cameras suit multi-storey and covered decks where they mount overhead and cover many bays, while open-air sites can use cameras on columns or in-ground sensors on isolated bays. Zone counting at entries and level transitions gives an accurate free-space count even where full per-bay detection is not justified.
What connectivity and power does it need?
AI cameras are typically PoE powered and networked over the site switch, while LoRaWAN parking sensors are battery powered and connect to a gateway such as the UG65 at £279.82 ex VAT. The right mix depends on whether you already have cabling and PoE at the bays or need a wireless retrofit.
What is the payback on smart parking?
Payback comes from higher effective capacity and less congestion: guiding drivers straight to free bays raises utilisation of the spaces you already have and cuts queueing and emissions from circling. For paid parking it also supports enforcement and dynamic signage. We scope the sensor and camera mix to the site so the count is accurate where it matters.
Do you supply in-ground single-bay parking sensors?
No. We do not stock a ground-mounted per-bay magnetic or radar puck. What we supply is overhead camera-based bay guidance for indoor car parks, where one unit covers several bays — a different product with different civils, not a cheaper version of a puck. If your scheme is specified around in-ground sensors we are not the right supplier for the sensing layer.
Buying this in the UK
- Entrance counting sensors from £40.40 ex VAT. We do not supply per-bay in-ground parking sensors.
- Supplied by Indiott, a trading name of PSI Technologies Limited (Companies House 03689664, VAT GB 730 2340 83), Hampshire, United Kingdom.
- Every price is published ex VAT at indiott.com — no quote needed to see it.
- Typically dispatched within 14 working days from the UK, on a VAT invoice.
- Call 023 9223 3611 or request a quote.
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Next step
Scope it with an engineer.
Tell us the site, the assets and the constraint. You get a bill of materials and a straight answer within one working day.
- A bill of materials sized to your site
- Priced ex VAT, UK entity, no login wall
Rather talk it through? Call 023 9223 3611
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If it is urgent, call 023 9223 3611.