Admyt, a South African ticketless parking app, is adding a new feature to make it harder for thieves to steal cars from public areas.
Currently, car owners who park at shopping centres, office parks, and malls are common targets for car thieves, as silently stealing a parked car is less risky than hijacking someone at gunpoint or knifepoint.
If the thief is able to enter and start your car, all they need to do is get past the security boom gate, and they are away with your vehicle.
If you leave your ticket in your car, this makes things easy for the thief – but thieves can get tickets in other ways, too.
Admyt is planning to shut down this risk by using its automatic number plate recognition tool installed at many security boom gates.
Used by over 80 locations in South Africa, including major malls and shopping centres, Admyt plans to add the ability to “lock” your car’s number plate on its app.
Then, even if a thief had a ticket and tried to leave through the boom gate, the gate would not open – sensing that a car with this numberplate is not meant to be leaving.
With this technology, the only way to leave the area would be by driving through the boom – although most of these gates now have spikes to deter this.
Solutions like this are important as criminal activities relating to car theft continue to be prevalent in South Africa.
According to SAPS data, there were 4,778 carjackings in South Africa for the three-month period spanning July 2025 to September 2025, while theft of motor vehicles or motorcycles stood at 7,726 for the same period.
A further 18,793 instances of theft out of or from a motor vehicle were recorded in the July 2025 to September 2025 period.
While these figures are high, they are at least declining.
Carjackings were down 12.3% year on year, vehicle thefts were down by 10.1%, and thefts from vehicles were down by 9.7%.
With initiatives like the one by Admyt, there is hope that this trend can continue.
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