Overview

• Heidelberg begins a test deployment on September 18 in two districts, and no fines will be issued during the pilot phase.
• Baden‑Württemberg is the first German state with a legal framework allowing scan-cars for parking control, according to the transport ministry.
• The vehicles read licence plates with roof-mounted cameras and compare them with digital records, so checks work only where parking permissions are stored electronically.
• Officials cite major efficiency gains of up to about 1,000 vehicle checks per hour versus roughly 50 on foot, referencing a Hohenheim trial that scanned 1,237 spaces three times in 75 minutes.
• Further pilots are in preparation in Mannheim, Freiburg and Waldshut‑Tiengen, while Düsseldorf is running a limited test under North Rhine‑Westphalia’s different legal conditions.