The article is not entirely clear, but I suspect that the threshold to deploy the Barnacle is lower than for towing. For example, would they really call the to

The article is not entirely clear, but I suspect that the threshold to deploy the Barnacle is lower than for towing. For example, would they really call the tow truck for a car with three unpaid tickets? And if a vehicle is parked blocking a fire lane or an entrance, they'll still have to have it towed, so there's not a one-to-one correspondence between the use cases.