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Waikawau boat ramp operates a licence plate recognition system (LPR) for launching, retrieving and parking. The LPR is based on your launch vehicle licence plate number, not your boat trailer licence plate number.
Waikawau boat ramp offers two options of paying for launching and retrieving at Waikawau, an annual membership or a boat ramp day pass (casual user). One of these options must be in place prior to launching or retrieving at Waikawau to avoid a $65 breach notice.
Ramp wardens and LPR cameras operate at Waikawau to monitor compliance.
Waikawau boat ramp operates a cashless system with cash no longer accepted at Waikawau. There are no payment facilities at Waikawau, so all payments are required to be made online (either using your mobile device at the ramp, or a location where you can use wifi if you don’t have mobile data)
Annual memberships
There are two types of annual memberships sold, single vehicle or multiple vehicle memberships. Once paid, these memberships include free launching and retrieving, at the Waikawau boat ramp, for the launch vehicle(s) for 12 months from the date of purchase. Both single vehicle and multiple vehicle memberships allow you to change your registered vehicle(s) up to three times per year for people who buy a different car. After three changes, you will be required to purchase an additional membership or pay $15 for a Boat Ramp Day Pass.
Single vehicle memberships offer an immediate membership for one launch vehicle. Once registered and paid for, these memberships allow for one launch vehicle licence plate to be registered. No evidence of the registered owner of the vehicle is required. The single vehicle memberships cost $50 per annum.
Multiple vehicle memberships are provided for people who have multiple vehicles that they use to launch and retrieve, that are registered to one party or one address. Two vehicles can be registered under this type of membership. When applying for a multiple vehicle membership, you’ll need to upload the required documentation through the system, such as address proof (typically NZTA registration renewal). This documentation is subject to WBRS approval, so please allow up to one week for the membership to be confirmed. With this type of membership, only one of the vehicles can be used each day, so if you intend to launch or retrieve on one day using both vehicles, then you will need to purchase 2 x single vehicle memberships. The multiple vehicle memberships cost $75 per annum.
If you have multiple launch vehicles that you regularly use, but they are not registered to the same person or address (eg a company vehicle and a personal vehicle), then you can purchase multiple single vehicle memberships to cover multiple vehicles (without needing to supply any additional documentation). Each of these additional memberships will cost $50 per registration as noted above.
Payment options
Membership payments are made online and payment options include visa, mastercard and account to account (direct credit).
To apply for a membership, click on the link below to create a new individual account. After validating your email, log in, complete your profile details, and apply for a membership.
https://vpermit.com.au/wbr/
Note : The system only accepts unique email addresses, so if you have been a member before and your email address is already in the system, you may need to reset your password rather than set up a new account.
Our licence plate recognition system is operated by a company called Stellar. Stellar is also responsible for the enforcement and Breach Notices. Our ramp wardens will continue to be at the ramp as often as they can, but they will be directing traffic and assisting people and will not be collecting any money.
New Licence Plate Recognition system at Waikawau Boat Ramp
The change in the membership system using licence plate recognition based on tow vehicle registration has come about for a number of reasons.
- The lack of members that are willing to donate their time to become ramp wardens
- The number of casual users that do not pay to launch unless there is someone there to collect the money
- The abuse that is sometimes directed at our volunteer ramp wardens when they are on duty
- It is not practical for us to use the boat trailer registration for licence plate recognition.
We want to make it clear that the change in the membership system is not about making our members pay more for their membership. If it was, we would have just put the subscription back up to $100 per member. The primary reason is to ensure that all people who launch or retrieve at Waikawau, contribute to the running costs of the ramp.
Historically, approximately 50% of launching at Waikawau was done by members. Since the reduction in the annual membership fee to $50, our number of members has increased significantly resulting in approx. 30% of users now being casuals. Based on surveys we have undertaken, of those casual users, approximately 50% of them did not pay unless there was a ramp warden there to collect money. That means that approx. 15% of users of the ramp do not pay. Yet they benefit from the facility which is maintained with funds from members and paying casual users. We do not think this is fair, particularly to our members. These non paying casuals also use up parking, add to the queues and to the wear and tear of the facility.
Options to increase the compliance of casual users paying, largely involved increasing the time our wardens spent at the ramp. Our wardens generously give up their free time to assist with the smooth running of the ramp (including collecting money). Unfortunately, despite numerous pleas amongst our members for more wardens (via newsletters and AGMs), we have had minimal numbers volunteer to help.
A number of people have suggested membership cards, barrier arms, padlocks, stickers in cars, continuing with trailer stickers etc. All of these membership methods require someone to be there to enforce or monitor them, and since our members haven’t put their hands up to assist as volunteer wardens, we have to move to a fully automated system.
So, we have moved to licence plate recognition on tow vehicles. A system that automates the collection of fees, and takes away the responsibility of money collection from the wardens. Our wardens will become ambassadors at the ramp to assist with launching, parking and information and be there to enjoy the fishing community, rather than cop abuse from some regarding money collection.
In some regard it would make sense to use the boat trailer registration as we appreciate that a small number of our members currently use multiple vehicles for towing boats for many reasons and they are disadvantaged. Unfortunately, it isn’t practical to use the boat trailer number plate for the licence plate recognition. We did look at this but the below issues were identified:
- Boat trailer number plates are only visible from the back. Cars, trucks etc need to have a front and rear number plate which makes plate capture more reliable.
- Boat trailer number plates are often obscured or mounted in interesting locations which may make them unreadable to cameras.
- Light boards used – often with light boards that many users utilise, they are easily transferable to other boats, but more importantly, they are often removed from the boat prior to launching so would not be captured.
- Many trailers display a registration plate, but if the trailer hasn’t been registered for several years then it is deregistered and the “registered user” of the plate is removed from NZTA making it difficult to track the user down
The licence plate recognition based on the tow vehicle will impact negatively on some of our members who use multiple vehicles for launching a single vessel and we apologise for that. However, we have had to do this to ensure that our ramp can continue to operate, even if we don’t have wardens in attendance. Unfortunately, we have had to restrict the number of vehicles members can register under their membership to ensure the less honest users don’t abuse the system.
Membership registration will be done via QR codes, as will casual user fees. Payment methods are include visa & mastercard (both debit and credit versions) and Account to Account payments (direct credit). There is no opportunity to pay by cash at the ramp.
Any user that doesn’t have the tow vehicle registered with us, or does not pay the $15 casual day pass fee, prior to launching / retrieving will be issued with a $65 breach notice. The breach notice will be managed by a third party. Waikawau Boat Ramp will not benefit from the breach notice revenue generated as this will go to the third party.