He added: "Early indications suggest that some of them are starting to see a decrease in the amount of time our officers are in there having to manage the spaces, but we aren't going to know 100 percent for a few weeks."

One of the areas that the sensors have been deployed is in St John's Wood high street, near Lord's Cricket Ground. Johnson explains how the data received from this area has given the Council a much better understanding of how drivers use their vehicles.

"We are averaging around 600 to 700 vehicles a day through this area, across 50 spaces. Average stay time is about 39 minutes. Go back two months and we would have no idea of that, we knew it was busy, but we had no specifics," he said.

"We also know that the profile of a vehicle in the morning is more likely to stay longer, perhaps an hour and a half. On the other hand, we get a really high turnover of vehicles at round 5pm, which are there for about 10 minutes at a time."

So how could this information impact parking policies in the area? There are a number of options. Johnson and Lodge said that tariffs could be increased in streets where there is a high turnover of vehicles and demand is high, whilst tariffs could be lowered in quiet streets - all to try and change driving behaviour.