Sunshine Plaza is a sub-regional shopping centre in Sunshine, Victoria, with more than 830 on-grade and undercover parking spaces.
The centre serves a varied mix of users across supermarket, specialty retail, healthcare, diagnostic services, pharmacy, fitness and government-office activity. That mix creates different visit durations and parking requirements across shoppers, staff, tenants, medical visitors, fitness users and other authorised users.
For Sunshine Plaza, the parking challenge was to accommodate those legitimate differences while addressing commuter vehicles occupying customer parking for extended periods and reducing availability for people visiting the centre.
The challenge
The previous parking environment was experiencing extended commuter use that reduced vehicle turnover and customer parking availability.
The centre also operates parking areas with different free-parking conditions. At implementation, the upper parking area provided one hour of free parking and the undercover area provided three hours.
The operating model therefore needed to recognise vehicles consistently across multiple lanes, apply the correct parking conditions for each area, manage vehicles moving between the two parking areas, accommodate tenants and authorised users, support digital customer validation, discourage extended commuter parking and maintain a straightforward ticketless customer journey.
The objective was to increase vehicle turnover and improve customer parking availability while accommodating the different ways people use Sunshine Plaza.
Ace Parking’s role
Sunshine Plaza appointed Ace Parking to lead the operational implementation and ongoing management of the parking system.
CDS Worldwide delivered the parking equipment solution, incorporating Adaptive Recognition licence plate recognition technology.
Ace Parking’s role included reviewing equipment and lane configuration, developing the parking operating rules, designing the customer journey, configuring parking conditions and authorised-user arrangements, coordinating signage and payment arrangements, supplier coordination, user acceptance testing, operational readiness, go-live operations, transition into business-as-usual management, ongoing parking operations and 24/7 Control Room support.
This separated technology supply from operational responsibility. CDS Worldwide provided the equipment solution, while Ace Parking translated the centre’s requirements into an operating parking model and continues to manage that environment after launch.
Parking-system configuration
The ticketless system went live on 9 June 2026.
- More than 830 parking spaces
- Three entry lanes
- Four exit lanes
- One transition lane between parking areas operating under different conditions
- Adaptive Recognition LPR cameras
- Ticketless vehicle entry and exit
- An online tenant parking portal
- Digital customer validations
- Tenant and authorised-user access management
- Ace Parking operational management and 24/7 Control Room support
The transition lane allows vehicles to move between the upper and undercover parking areas while remaining identifiable within the same parking journey, despite the areas operating under different free-parking conditions.
Tenant access and digital validation
The solution also introduced an online portal allowing authorised Sunshine Plaza tenants to manage staff parking access and issue digital customer validations.
This gives tenants controlled self-service capability for routine staff and customer parking requirements without introducing physical tickets or vouchers into the ticketless journey.
Centre Management retains oversight and control of the parking environment, including the parking rules and tenant arrangements operating across the site. Ace Parking manages the operational layer, including system administration, parking operations, customer assistance and 24/7 Control Room support.
Centre Management oversight → Ace Parking operational management → controlled tenant self-service → staff and customer parking access.
Testing the complete customer journey
Ace Parking undertook user acceptance testing before go-live.
Testing covered the complete parking journey rather than individual equipment components in isolation. This included entry and exit movements, licence plate recognition, different parking conditions, movement through the transition lane, digital validations, authorised users and exception scenarios.
Operational procedures were tested alongside the technology. Ace Parking’s operations team and Control Room were prepared for the new system before launch so customer enquiries, recognition exceptions and operating issues had an established escalation path from the first day of operation.
From go-live to business-as-usual
Ace Parking managed the go-live and transition into normal parking operations.
Sunshine Plaza is now supported through Ace Parking’s ongoing parking management and 24/7 Control Room, providing remote customer assistance, operational escalation and coordination with site teams and technical support where required.
The system is therefore managed as an ongoing parking operation rather than a completed technology installation. Recognition performance, customer issues, tenant access and parking behaviour can continue to be reviewed during normal operation.
Measured results
Across a full month of operation, the system processed 136,431 licence plates and achieved a 99.53% plate-match rate.
The project also delivered a significant increase in vehicle turnover, directly addressing the original problem of commuter vehicles occupying customer parking for extended periods.
The higher vehicle turnover has improved parking availability for customers visiting Sunshine Plaza while retaining different parking conditions and access requirements across the centre.
Sunshine Plaza now operates a parking environment combining high-volume LPR performance, increased vehicle turnover, improved customer parking availability, differentiated parking conditions, digital customer validation, tenant-managed staff parking access, Centre Management oversight, and ongoing Ace Parking management and Control Room support.
What the project demonstrates
Sunshine Plaza demonstrates how parking technology, operational design and governance need to work together in a complex retail environment.
The centre’s 830+ spaces support users with very different parking behaviours and visit durations. The solution therefore required more than cameras and boom gates.
It combined LPR technology, multiple parking conditions, transition-lane logic, digital validation, tenant self-service, user acceptance testing, operational support and ongoing management within one controlled parking environment.
The measured result is a 99.53% plate-match rate at substantial operating volume, together with increased vehicle turnover and improved customer parking availability.
Current Sunshine Plaza parking conditions should remain on the customer-facing location page because those conditions can change independently of this case study.
Related capability
Explore Ace Parking’s retail parking capability, car park management and operations, parking equipment and technology, and Remote Monitoring & Control Room.
Last reviewed: 1 September 2026.
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