Registers – Systems controlled by data bearing records – Transportation
Patent
1997-09-04
1999-05-18
Le, Thien
Registers
Systems controlled by data bearing records
Transportation
235381, G06K15/00
Patent
active
059052473
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a parking fee system comprising: a parking fee register in which information is maintained on the vehicles within the system for the parking of which payment is made at each time. The invention also relates to a control device for controlling the payment of a parking fee in a system comprising a parking fee register in which information is maintained on the vehicles within the system for the parking of which payment is made at each time. The invention also relates to a vehicle-specific identification means comprising attachment means for attaching the identification means onto a vehicle, and on which a vehicle-specific vehicle code of the vehicle is indicated by letters and/or numbers.
In this application the concept parking fee register refers generally to the register itself and to computer equipment by means of which the register is maintained and by means of which the contents of the register can be checked.
Prior art teaches parking fee systems in which a driver of a vehicle immediately after parking, calls a predetermined service number with a mobile phone and dials a digit sequence with the mobile phone for paying the parking fee. In that case the digit sequence dialled by the driver includes the code of the parking space in which the driver has parked the vehicle, for example. Information is stored into the parking fee register of the system for the car that has been parked, whereby the system starts calculating the parking fee on the basis of predetermined hourly charging. Similarly, at the end of parking, the caller makes a new call, whereby information is stored into the parking fee register that the parking has terminated. In this known system a traffic warden uses a portable computer which receives information from the parking control register and which is capable of informing if a parking fee is being paid from a parking space with a specified code at that moment.
The most significant disadvantage of the above system is that each parking space within the system has to have a separate code of its own. This causes considerable practical problems in cities, for example, in which there may be a great number of parking spaces. For example, the system is totally unusable on streets where specific parking spaces have not been indicated.
Another disadvantage of the above system is that it is difficult to control. In order that a traffic warden could determine if a parking fee is being paid from a specified parking space, the code of said space, street or part of town must be entered into the warden's portable computer terminal for controlling. Said process is understandably rather slow and very laborious.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of this invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems and provide a user-friendly parking fee system in which parking control is very easy. This object is achieved with the system according to the invention that is characterized in that the system comprises: a vehicle-specific identification means from which a vehicle code of a vehicle is readable by machine, and a control device for reading automatically the vehicle code from the identification means, for transmitting a control request message containing the vehicle code to the parking fee register, and for receiving a control information message informing of the payment or non-payment of the parking fee and for notifying the user of the device of the information included in the control information message.
In this context, the reading of the vehicle code automatically by machine refers to reading the contents of for instance, a bar code or an inductive tag, i.e. an escort memory, whereby a vehicle-specific code can be supplied to the control device without the user needing to feed the code manually into the device. In this context, a tag, i.e. an escort memory refers to a unit known per se which includes a memory circuit the data contained in which can be read by measuring the change caused by the tag into a magnetic field prevailing in
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Le Thien
Payway Oy
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