Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Usage measurement
Patent
1996-10-03
1999-01-05
Hofsass, Jeffery A.
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Usage measurement
455407, 340928, 340933, 34082554, 235486, 235384, G08G 100
Patent
active
058571523
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to electronic toll payment. A toll is a charge for access to a facility. As far as road vehicles are concerned tolls may be payable for access to roads, tunnels and bridges, for example. As far as individuals are concerned the entrance fees to entertainments such as sporting events or the fares for mass transit facilities may be regarded as tolls.
A problem with toll fee collection is that it takes time and vehicles and individuals are held up by passage through toll gates or turnstiles. Proposals have been made for the electronic payment of tolls whereby fixed sensors interact remotely with devices carried by passing vehicles or persons and, for example, a pre-paid token or card in the device is cancelled or partially cancelled as payment.
Facility-specific pre-paid cards (a phone card is an example) have the important advantage of anonymity but are inflexible in use. Transactions involving them are insecure and are not themselves fund-transfer transactions. An object of the invention is to facilitate toll payment by electronic cash.
Electronic cash is held in electronic purses. An electronic purse is a device used in a value transfer system for cashless transactions. Value is transferred electronically from one purse to another or from banks' or retailers' terminals. Transfer may be made by direct electronic connection between purses, by telephone connection using modems or by remote communication using infra-red light or radio. Key features of a satisfactory electronic cash system are true, anonymity and security. Security is a particular problem when value messages in the system broadcast by radio, magnetic or optical/infra-red signals as is inevitable in a remote, contactless transaction. A suitable electronic cash system is described in patent application Nos. WO91/16691 and WO93/08545. Here, transactions are truly anonymous and security is ensured by a public/private key encryption system. Individual messages in the system can be transmitted in less than 100 ms but there may typically be three or four messages interchanged in a transaction and encryption/decryption of each may take 500 ms. Therefore, a typical transaction may take seconds to complete. This is too long to allow swiftly moving traffic to effect a secure electronic cash transaction in passing a toll gantry.
According to the invention there is provided a system for toll payment by mobiles comprising, on each mobile a communication device and an electronic purse coupled to the device, the electronic purse being part of an electronic cash system, the toll payment system comprising localiser means for localising communication devices and a remote communication system for communicating with mobile communication devices to effect toll payments by exchanging cryptographically secure value transfer messages. A "mobile" can be a vehicle or person.
A problem with remote toll payment systems is in maintaining the ability to pursue those who have not paid while preserving the principle of anonymity. One method of enforcing payment is to arrange that the electronic purse shall carry a receipt of a completed toll payment. Physical spot checks can reveal non-payment and act as a deterrent. However, it may be preferred to enable automatic detection of non-payers. This is particularly difficult if the anonymity of electronic cash is to be preserved. A preferred feature of the invention provides a solution.
Thus, preferably means are provided for obtaining a mobile identifier identifying the communication device or the mobile carrying the electronic purse; means are provided for correlating temporarily the mobile identifier with an identifier for the electronic purse and means are provided for (a) discarding the mobile identifier if the toll payment transaction is completed satisfactorily or (b) discarding the purse identifier if the toll payment transaction fails. With this arrangement while anonymity is potentially destroyed by associating the purse identifier with the mobile identifier it is to be noted that this association is
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Hofsass Jeffery A.
Mannava Ashok
Mondex International Limited
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