A 160-seat restaurant in Amsterdam's city centre has 22 private parking spaces at the entrance. On a Friday evening, 17 of them are taken by shoppers avoiding the multi-storey next door before the first guest arrives. Signs saying "customers only" have limited practical effect: on a freely accessible private site, an owner cannot exclude drivers without a physical barrier, as the Dutch Road Traffic Act applies to any site open to traffic. That is the problem an ANPR barrier solves for hospitality venues.
Revtek · 20 October 2026
A private car park that anyone can drive onto falls within the scope of Dutch traffic law. The owner cannot independently enforce parking rules: that requires authorised enforcement officers or police, and they only act on public roads or designated public-access sites. A sign reading "parking for customers only" is an announcement, not an enforceable restriction, as long as the site is physically open to everyone. The conclusion is the same in practical discussions on Dutch enforcement law: without a barrier or gate, the owner has few instruments.
The reliable solution is a physical barrier connected to licence plate recognition. An ANPR camera at the entrance reads the plate, checks it against the authorised list and sends a signal to the barrier or bollard. If the plate is on the list, the barrier rises. If not, it stays down. The site is effectively closed to anyone you have not explicitly granted access.
For a restaurant, that comes down to managing three groups: staff and regular suppliers on a permanent list, delivery drivers and caterers with time-limited access, and guests at private dining events or group bookings added per occasion.
Kitchen staff, front-of-house and cleaning crews come at the same time every day. Their plates are entered once in the dashboard, optionally with a time window: the kitchen team from 09:00, the evening shift from 15:00. If a staff member arrives outside their window, the dashboard shows an alert and the barrier stays down.
Regular suppliers, such as the drinks wholesaler who comes every Tuesday, get a permanent entry too. When a staff member leaves or a supplier changes, you remove the plate in the dashboard. That takes thirty seconds and access ends immediately, with no pass to collect and no code to change.
Delivery drivers change constantly. The driver bringing meat products on Monday has a different plate from the one arriving on Friday, and neither is in your records. The head chef sends a WhatsApp message to the system's management number with the plate and the required duration: "park AB-123-C 45 minutes". The system grants access and removes the plate automatically when the slot expires.
No one needs to stand at the entrance to open the barrier manually. The driver pulls in as soon as the slot is active and drives out after unloading. Every movement is logged, so you can see afterwards which plates were on site and when.
For a private dinner for twenty or a corporate function in the upstairs room, you know in advance who's coming. The booking confirmation includes a link where guests register their own plate for that evening. The system assigns a time slot automatically, for example 17:30 to 01:00, and the plate expires without further admin. Guests who are not driving do nothing.
When you need to add someone at the last minute, the host sends a WhatsApp message with the plate to the management number. It's the same action as for a delivery driver, and it works even after service has started. For larger events where you want to add several plates at once, you can upload a list through the dashboard.
The costs have two components. One-time: the ANPR camera and the barrier or rising bollard. An outdoor camera from Axis, Hikvision or Bosch costs indicatively €400 to €900 per unit. If you already have cameras from these manufacturers at the entrance, many are already capable of reading plates and the camera investment falls away. Installation depends on the existing situation: whether there is a barrier that can be connected, or whether a new one is needed.
Monthly: the platform subscription. Revtek starts at €175 per month per site, covering the full dashboard, barrier integration, time-limited access via WhatsApp and movement logging. For comparison: a part-time parking attendant working three evenings a week costs indicatively €1,000 to €1,500 per month, without automated logging or time-slot management. The pricing page gives a first overview of the subscription options.
The ANPR camera needs a clear line of sight to the entrance, ideally at three to six metres from where the car stops. A narrow street or a right-angle approach may require extra mounting work. Also check whether your existing barrier or bollard has a control input the system can drive; most current models do, but on older installations this is worth verifying before you plan the rest.
ANPR data is personal data: a plate combined with date and time is traceable to an individual. Include the processing in your privacy statement, set a retention period that fits the purpose (access security), and sign a data processing agreement with Revtek. This is not legal advice; consult a specialist for your situation. More on how parking management works for hospitality venues is on the Revtek hospitality page. In a conversation we look at your entrance, your existing cameras and your current setup, then propose an approach that builds on what you already have.
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