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Licence plates at warehouse and elevator gates: what it gives you, which camera you need, and what it costs

Licence plates at warehouse and elevator gates: what it gives you, which camera you need, and what it costs

7 min read · Updated 2026-10-30

For: owners and managers of warehouses, grain elevators and logistics companies, security teams

Summary

A plate recognition system records the plate, time, camera and a photo for every vehicle. That gives you a log of entries and exits, the time a truck spends on site, and a basis for matching against the weighing ticket or shipping document.
Matching a plate to documents is possible only when data from the weighbridge or accounting system can be obtained, and you need to find that out on site before buying.
Reading a plate takes a dedicated camera at the gate. Dahua's guide asks for 130 to 150 pixels of plate width and an angle of no more than 30° to the direction of travel. An overview camera over a yard usually does not deliver that.
At public prices on 30.10.2026, AVTONOMER cloud recognition starts at about UAH 3,097 per camera per month, and a NumberOk SMB-1 licence on secur.ua is UAH 33,320 one-off. Camera, installation and weighbridge integration are not included.

For: owners and managers of warehouses, grain elevators and logistics companies, security teams

What the system records and what a business does with it

The gate camera sees a vehicle, the software reads the plate, and a row goes into the log: plate, date and time, which camera, a photo of the frame. That is all plate recognition gives on its own. A warehouse or elevator can build several useful things from those rows:

a log of entries and exits with photos that you search by plate or date instead of scrubbing through video;
the time a vehicle spent on site, from its first row at the gate to its row at the exit;
lists of your own, approved and unknown plates, so an unknown vehicle outside working hours becomes a separate card;
evidence in a dispute: who entered, when, and in what vehicle.

The system does not know what is in the truck or how much it weighs. Documents and scales cover that, and the next section covers how a plate connects to them.

Matching to the weighing ticket and the shipping document

At an elevator or a large warehouse every truck goes over the scales, and the document is issued against the vehicle's plate. If the plate from the camera matches the plate on the ticket and the entry time falls within a sensible window, the log row and the document can be matched without a person. Mismatches, such as a truck that came in and left with no ticket for it, go to a separate list for review.

This works only if the weighbridge or accounting program lets you get its data, through an export, a database or an API. Whether that is possible in a particular program depends on its vendor, and we find that out on site before promising anything. We have not yet launched the system at elevators or warehouses, so we have no ready-made connector to weighbridge programs and will not pretend to.

A camera does not measure weight and cannot replace scales. It shows that a truck was on site, and the weighing terminal says how much it carried.

Truck time on site and at the dock

If cameras cover the gate, the scales and the dock doors, one plate appears in several log rows, and the gaps between them give the time for each stage: gate to scales, on the scales, at the dock, dock to exit. After a few weeks you can see where trucks wait longest. The queue may turn out to form at the scales rather than at the dock.

We covered what such delays cost in the US and Europe, and why they are worth counting, in the article on losses at the loading dock. There are no general Ukrainian figures, so count your own from the log after a few weeks of operation.

The accuracy of the timing depends on having a camera at each point. Where there is none, the truck vanishes from the log, and the time between two known points cannot be split into stages.

Which camera and which angle

An overview camera sees the whole yard, while a plate is read by a camera aimed at the lane the vehicle drives along. Manufacturers publish requirements for how large the plate must be in the frame. We rely on Dahua's "LPR Camera Selection & Installation Guide v1.1", which describes its plate cameras. Figures for other makers may differ, so check them against the documentation of the camera you choose before buying.

Plate width in the frame. The guide requires at least 130 pixels of plate width for single-row plates, and 150 for a few countries. Ukraine is not listed separately, so for a Ukrainian single-row plate aim for 130, and preferably up to 150. The guide also notes that most failures happen when the plate is too small in the frame, and a somewhat larger plate does no harm. In 1080p video (1920 pixels wide), 150 pixels is about 8% of the frame width.
Angle. The horizontal angle between the direction of travel and the camera should be no more than 30°, and the vertical angle also no more than 30°.
Speed. If vehicles move fast, the guide recommends shortening the exposure to roughly 2.5 to 3 ms.
Darkness and headlights. At night you need infrared lighting, and at long range the guide says a separate IR lamp may be needed. If the plate is overexposed, reduce the IR power or the exposure.

Two practical conclusions. First, check on live video how many pixels the plate occupies at the distance you need; the figures above are a guide, not a guarantee. Second, an overview camera covering the whole yard usually cannot read a plate because the plate is too small in its frame. So you will most likely need one camera per entry lane. How many exactly is visible only on site.

What it costs on the Ukrainian market

There is no single price, because plate recognition is sold both as a subscription and as a licence. Here are two public examples as of 30.10.2026.

AVTONOMER lists cloud recognition on avtonomer.org as a monthly tariff per camera: STREAM BASE about UAH 3,097 (3-month archive, event with a photo), STREAM PRO about UAH 5,531 (video up to 60 seconds, make, model, colour, year, 12-month archive), STREAM MAX about UAH 8,850 (5-year archive). The page converts dollars at UAH 44.25 and says the prices are approximate. Over a year that is roughly UAH 37,000 to 106,000 per camera.
The store secur.ua offers NumberOk SMB-1 software for UAH 33,320. The licence is one-off, and on 30.10.2026 the item is marked out of stock. The page does not say how many channels or cameras it covers, so it can be compared with a per-camera subscription only after asking the seller.

These sums do not include the camera, bracket, lighting, cable, installation, or connection to a weighbridge or accounting program. We do not quote hardware prices here because they depend on the site. What our solution costs per camera and how to build a total budget is covered in the article on the cost of video analytics.

When comparing offers, ask what exactly is in the price: how many cameras, whether there is an archive and for how long, whether it connects to your weighbridge, and whether the data stays with you or in a cloud.

What a plate does not give you

The weight of the cargo. Scales give that, and the camera only records that the vehicle drove onto them.
The driver. A plate points to a vehicle, not to the person at the wheel, and we do not offer face recognition.
A 100% result. A dirty, bent or covered plate, snow, or headlight glare can cause an error or a miss. That is why the system needs a queue for manual review where doubtful rows land.
Protection against a fake plate. If a vehicle carries someone else's plate, the system will record exactly that plate.

A plate can point to the vehicle's owner, so before launch decide who has access to the log and how long it is kept. We wrote separately about the general questions of personal data in video analytics: video analytics and personal data.

Where to start

Draw a truck's route from the gate to the exit and mark the points where you need to see it: entrance, scales, dock, exit.
Check which of these points already has a camera looking along the lane, and how many pixels the plate occupies on live video.
Find out where the documents for matching come from: a weighbridge program, 1C/BAS or another, and whether it gives out data.
Decide what matters most: the log, time on site, matching, or a list of unknown vehicles. That determines how many cameras you need first.
Ask the supplier to show results on your cameras in shadow mode: what was recognised, what was missed, how many rows went to manual review.

We configure the system for the specific site and start in shadow mode, where only you see the results and staff get no alerts. Licence-plate recognition is among the things we do.