After a well attended Bournemouth meeting. It came as a bit of a surprise to find the car park barrier opened without even putting the ticket in the machine. Bit frustrating after shelling out £7. Anybody else find the same? Perhaps the machines already know who has paid - spooky!
We had the same experience especially, particularly galling as we had only strayed over the time by a few minutes. The barrier opened for us also. Do the tickets have a chip in them?
Doesn't make sense; I think we should investigate not paying and accept any embarrassment from the barrier not opening and having to reverse back to a machine. I'm convinced that the tickets are just a printed bar code, not smart with a chip.
I understood the system works on number plate recognition. So I guess your plate is associated with your ticket when you go in. Then, when you approach the barrier, it scans your plate again and, if you have paid, the barrier raises.
I think there could well be number-plate recognition since there appear to be cameras at the right level. However, I have used the car park during the day and always had to put my ticket into the machine to get the barrier to raise. I concluded, pure assumption, that the number plate readers must only work with season tickets.
John Surtees 