What is this?
Parking Watch Leuven is a free community map of temporary parking restrictions in and around Leuven — moving lifts, roadworks, events, reserved spots, temporary no-parking (E1) signs.
It exists because there was no single place to check whether your street is about to be blocked. The Leuven police confirmed they don't run such a site, so this was built by a resident, for residents. It's a community tool — not an official channel.
Two kinds of information on the map
Community reports
Reports added by people like you: a pin or a drawn line, the reason, the dates, optionally a photo of the sign. Anyone can confirm a report ("still there 👍") or flag it ("gone / wrong ⚠️"). When enough people flag something as wrong, it's automatically removed. This is the only source that covers private situations like a neighbour's moving lift — which no official database tracks.
To keep the map clean, every marked point is automatically snapped to the nearest street, and spots that aren't on a road can't be marked — so reports always line up with the actual street network.
Official works & events (GIPOD)
Shown in purple, these come from GIPOD (Generiek Informatieplatform Openbaar Domein), the Flemish government's official open database of works and events on the public domain, published by Digitaal Vlaanderen. We refresh this automatically a few times a day.
You may notice the official link points to an address that won't open — that's because GIPOD has two doors: a fully open data service that we read from, and a separate logged-in system that cities and contractors use to enter the works. The reference in the open data points at that closed system, so instead we give you a Google Maps link to the spot. The purple marker is an approximate point; click it and the exact affected zone is drawn on the map.
Alerts
Set an alert for a street or a spot (with a radius) and we'll email you when something is reported there. You choose how long the alert lasts, from one day to "until I remove it". To see or delete your alerts later, use "Manage your alerts" — we email you a secure link, so there's no account or password to remember.
Your privacy
The guiding rule: collect as little as possible. There are no accounts, no tracking cookies, no analytics, no advertising, and nothing is ever sold or shared.
What we store
- Your email address — only if you create an alert. It's used for one thing: sending you the alerts you asked for (and the management link). You can delete it yourself anytime via "Manage your alerts". This is the only piece of personal information we keep.
- Reports you submit: location, dates, reason, optional free-text name, and any photos. Reports are public and anonymous by default — you never have to give your name.
- A one-way fingerprint of your IP address for votes, so each person counts once per report. It's a scrambled hash, not your actual address, and it isn't linked to your email or your reports.
What stays only on your device
- Your parked-car location ("I parked here") — saved in your browser, never sent to us.
- The alerts shown as bells on your map — a local copy in your browser.
What we don't do
- No tracking cookies, no analytics scripts, no advertising, no social-media trackers.
- No login, no password, no profile.
- We don't sell, rent, or share your data with anyone.
Other services involved
To work, the site uses a few external services that may see your IP address as a normal part of loading a page, the same as any website: the map tiles (OpenStreetMap / CARTO), the code libraries (jsDelivr / unpkg CDNs), and email delivery (Resend) when an alert is sent. When you place a pin while reporting, the coordinates are sent to OpenStreetMap's address lookup to fill in the street name. The official GIPOD data is fetched by our own server, so your browser never talks to it directly. We deliberately removed Google Fonts so no font request goes to Google.
A note on photos
Photos you upload are public. Please photograph the sign, not people, faces, or licence plates.
Important
This is a community project and not an official source. We can't guarantee that reports are accurate or complete, and we accept no liability if they aren't — the signs on the street are always the only thing that counts. For official information, see leuven.be.
Credits & support
Official data: GIPOD — Digitaal Vlaanderen. Maps: OpenStreetMap contributors & CARTO.
Keeping this site online costs a small amount each month. If it ever saved you a parking fine, you can ☕ buy me a coffee to help cover it.
Got an idea or found a bug? Use the Ideas tab on the main page — this site is shaped by its community.
Last updated: June 2026.