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Heidelberg uses scanning car: Parking offenders on the trail!
From September 17, 2025, Heidelberg will be testing a scanning car for parking surveillance in order to efficiently detect illegal parking.
Heidelberg uses scanning car: Parking offenders on the trail!
An innovative scanning car has been in use in Heidelberg since September 17, 2025, which detects parking violators at lightning speed and is intended to make road traffic safer. This pilot project targets both expired parking tickets and illegally parked vehicles, and citizens can rest easy during the test phase as no tickets will be handed out. The scanning car mainly drives through the picturesque old town of Heidelberg and the popular Bahnstadt district, where you naturally want to keep an overview.
A single scan car has the impressive ability to inspect up to 1,000 vehicles per hour - these are phenomenal numbers compared to a foot inspector who can only inspect around 50 cars at the same time. However, this does not happen without technical finesse: the vehicle, equipped with modern cameras, recognizes the license plates of parked cars and compares them with a database at lightning speed. After a maximum of two seconds, it becomes clear whether everything is OK or whether the vehicle does not comply with the applicable parking regulations, according to reports daily news.
A first of its kind
The use of this scanning car is a novelty in Germany. Baden-Württemberg was the first federal state to create a legal basis for this. The State Mobility Act is used to improve traffic monitoring and thus increase road safety. Transport Minister Winfried Hermann emphasizes that the use of such vehicles should also reduce the pressure on the lack of parking spaces in cities.
Aside from the controls, the scanning cars are also intended to relieve the burden on city employees without replacing them entirely. The project is supported by the company DCX Innovations GmbH, which specializes in modern solutions in the field of mobility. An evaluation of the results will be published next year, in early 2026. It will be interesting to see what insights can be gained from this.
Reactions and criticism
The Association of Cities welcomes the use of such innovative technologies, especially in view of the fact that the number of vehicles in both cities and the entire state has increased by 19 percent since 2010, while the population has only grown by 4 percent. As a result, public parking spaces in Heidelberg and the surrounding area are slowly becoming scarce.
However, there are also critical voices about this new system. The ADAC has expressed concerns and is calling for a coherent parking space concept that goes beyond the use of digitalization. The question remains whether the scanning car actually represents a permanent solution to the parking problem or whether it only offers short-term relief.
A look into the future: after the first steps in Heidelberg were successful, other cities such as Mannheim and Freiburg are also planning to implement similar projects. The mobility transition is well underway and technology is ready to make our roads safer. How the whole thing will develop remains to be seen – only time will tell. For now, the hope remains that fewer illegally parked vehicles will lead to smoother traffic and more safety for all road users.