Horology: time measuring systems or devices – Time interval – Parking meter type
Patent
1989-02-23
1991-03-26
Miska, Vit W.
Horology: time measuring systems or devices
Time interval
Parking meter type
194902, 235380, G04F 100, G07B 1500
Patent
active
050035207
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a system of time accounting. It applies, in particular, to the accounting of parking subject to charge periods. However, this application is not limited and can be applied to any situation where it is necessary to account for time by gradual consumption, as time elapses, using units of credit having a preassigned duration with respect to the user.
The current used parking accounting systems are based principally on the use of individual (parking meters) or collective (time-date ticket dispensers) posts operated by coins or, in closed parking areas using magnetic tickets which record the time of arrival and trigger the opening of a barrier after the payment of an amount indicated by an automatic coin machine or to a cashier.
It has also been proposed (see more particularly GB-A-2 158 628) to replace coins by prepaid electronic tickets and time stamps or other coin devices by individual cases made available to users, which would be put behind their windshield and which would automatically debit the prepaid ticket by the amount corresponding to the real parking time while also displaying data intended both for the user (balance remaining in ticket, allowed parking limit period), and for supervisory personnel (overrun of the authorized parking period).
Such an "electronic ticket" could notably include an electronic memory in which each memory location could be written-in individually and irreversibly while each of the memory locations would represent a credit in consumed time units, one after the other, by successively writing into the corresponding memory locations. Unlike magnetic tickets, the memory (which can appear in the form of a card is not rechargeable, thus considerably limiting any risks of fraudulent use.
Such a system has the advantage of relieving the user of the necessity to have coins with him, or to have exact change. In addition, he only pays for the real parking time and not a greater amount corresponding to a maximum pre-estimated length of time.
However, if such a system is to be put into effective practice, there is a problem related to the use of previously used cards which contain only a small residual balance of parking time units.
Indeed, if this residual balance (or remainder) is very small, the user will have no recourse other than to abandon the corresponding credit in such a way that the card will have cost him more than the usage to which it has been put (unless a procedure of restitution and reimbursement of the cards is established by the authority which issues them; obviously this procedure would be difficult to manage).
If, on the contrary, this balance, however small, corresponds to the usable value, the user might not risk using it immediately because, since he would rarely know the exact length of time he will be parking for, he would tend to over-estimate such periods and prefer to insert a fresh or barely used card.
These difficulties mean that the user will finally have a high number of cards which have been started and which would render the system relatively impractical.
It will be noted that this drawback is more apparent in the case of cards with a moderate nominal value which will therefore be quickly consumed, whereas it is precisely desirable to propose cards having a moderate nominal value to favor the acceptance of the system by the public.
One of the objects of the present invention is to completely eliminate these difficulties by resolving the problem of using the remainders in the cards.
For this purpose, according to the invention, the unit is to be provided a temporary storage means for credit in time units, activable if the duration credits subsisting in the card inserted into the unit is less than the parking time clocked by the user.
More particularly, the invention proposes that the case should be provided with a time unit accumulator which the user will charge by the remainder in one or several started cards which he could therefore "dump" into the case for subsequent consumption. Then if necessary, he would insert ano
REFERENCES:
patent: 3771916 (1976-07-01), Moreno
patent: 4231458 (1980-11-01), Limone
patent: 4717815 (1988-01-01), Tomer
patent: 4730285 (1988-03-01), Lie
patent: 4876540 (1989-10-01), Berthon et al.
Grieu Francois
Levy Frederic
Miska Vit W.
Plottel Roland
Societe Internationale pour l'Innovation S.A.
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