There are a lot of traffic estimates on the Costa Brava. There are very few actual measurements. The gap between those two things is why we decided to only publish, on this website, figures that come from the Ajuntament de Castell-Platja d'Aro's commercial report — a report built on automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) readings.
What ANPR is
ANPR stands for Automatic Number Plate Recognition. These are fixed cameras installed at the municipality's entry points that read, in real time, the plate of every vehicle that passes them. They don't identify drivers, don't keep personal photographs and don't chase traffic offences: their job is to count, classify and aggregate traffic flows.
In Platja d'Aro, the Ajuntament uses these cameras to monitor how incoming traffic evolves over the year. The resulting data is published in the municipal commercial report — an annual document that cross-references traffic figures with hotel occupancy, commercial turnover and event attendance.
Why ANPR beats an estimate
Most out-of-home audience estimates are modelled: you take a spot count, multiply by flow factors and extrapolate across the full month. The result is useful, but it's not a measurement — it's an inference.
A municipal ANPR system, by contrast, measures every vehicle that enters the perimeter — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no sampling and no extrapolation. It's the same kind of data European cities use for smart-traffic management, low-emission zones and urban tolling.
The 2025 numbers
The Platja d'Aro municipal report for Q1–Q3 2025 records 2.5 million vehicles at the ANPR reading points. The comparable Q2 2025 figure versus Q2 2024 shows +30.67% growth. That means that — with the same surface area, the same municipality and the same entry points — nearly a third more cars drove in during the 2025 summer than the previous one.
This isn't a marketing number. It's a counter that can't lie: either the camera saw the plate or it didn't. If it did, it counted. If it didn't, it didn't. That brutal simplicity is exactly what gives the data its weight.
What this means for a brand
For a brand buying space on PimPam Media's LED screen, these figures act as a floor — not a ceiling. They are the number of vehicles that entered the municipality. They don't count pedestrians, they don't count repeat visits by the same person, and they don't count tourists arriving by bus or train. It's only part of the real reach, but it's the measured part.
When we say "2.5 million vehicles", what we're really saying is: there's a floor of 2.5 million opportunities to impact verified by a municipal camera — and on top of that, a significant pedestrian audience we didn't want to inflate with estimates.
Where to find it
The Ajuntament de Castell-Platja d'Aro's commercial report is available through the council's official publications. Every figure cited on our website comes directly from that report. In the Sources section you'll find the link, the exact publication and a short explanatory note for each number.