Material or article handling – Self-loading or unloading vehicles – Having elevating load body
Patent
1986-08-15
1990-02-20
Werner, Frank E.
Material or article handling
Self-loading or unloading vehicles
Having elevating load body
298 23D, 296 61, 414458, 414480, 414537, 414917, B60P 102
Patent
active
049021885
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to vehicles, in particular motor vehicles for carrying specialised objects such as shopping trolley carts and the like.
Shopping trolley carts are a multimillion dollar industry. The advent of shopping complexes with very large supermarkets has meant an increase in the number of these trolleys which are required. Further, as the complexes are large and require a great deal of parking space for customers, there usually results the littering of these car parks with "once used" abandoned trolleys. This happens either due to tiredness or laziness on the part of the customer. Particularly in view of the expansive nature of the car parks, the customers decide that it is too far to return the trolley back to its pick-up point, and simply leave them in the car park.
In the past, it has been the job of attendants to roam the car parks and retrieve the trolleys which are usually scattered, or if customers have been considerate, are located in a centralised collection area in the car park itself. However, as the cost of labour increases this task is getting more expensive and is usually an unpleasant task for employees.
For obvious reasons, the shopping trolleys cannot be left in the car parks as they become damaged due to corrosion, collision with motor vehicles and customers, damage through vandalism or lost through theft. The routine maintenance bill to large supermarket chains and the like is ever on the increase and this sort of damage increases by very large amounts, this maintenance bill.
There have been proposed vehicles to overcome this problem however, such prior art collection vehicles are of a front fork lift configuration. These vehicles rely on the trolley carts being first nested together, then the operator of the fork lift moving the very large forks or prongs on the vehicle into engagement with the nested trolleys. Once the nested trolleys have been "speared" they are carried to a collection area or location close to the point where they will be reintroduced into customer service.
This system has many disadvantages, which include the following:
(a) The fork lift vehicle when unloaded has prongs which extend forwardly, which are a danger both to pedestrians and motor vehicles.
(b) When loaded, the fork lift vehicle operator has a great deal of his vision obscured, as it is necessary to angle the nested trolleys to prevent them sliding off the prong or fork. This is obviously a danger to both pedestrians and motor vehicles in the parking lots.
(c) A nest of trolleys, sometimes ten to twelve at a time, is loaded on the fork, which as mentioned previously, is then tilted to prevent the trolleys falling off. This means that the lower most trolleys, once they have been angled, bear a great deal of weight, in a manner in which the trolleys are not designed to do.
(d) By virtue of the angling of the trolleys to prevent them falling off the fork, the trolleys can become jammed together and once released from the fork are placed into service in a conglomerated unit, which is very difficult to separate by the customers for immediate use.
(e) Due to the nature of engagement with the trolleys prongs of the fork of the fork lift vehicle, there is the potential, if used by untrained personnel, to actually damage the trolleys during the "spearing operation". Also the power operated fork lifts can tend to crush and dent the walls of the trolleys.
(f) As the trolleys are brought back to ground after transportation, the trolleys can be dropped and damaged.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle for collecting trolleys which substantially overcomes or ameloriates the abovementioned disadvantages.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is disclosed a vehicle comprising a wheeled body and a tray section which is moveable between a transportation position and a lower loading position, said tray being connected to the wheeled body such that said tray retains substantially the same horizontal orientation throughout its movements. Further, it is preferred th
REFERENCES:
patent: 1487201 (1924-03-01), Brezovitz et al.
patent: 2230014 (1941-01-01), Raven
patent: 2822944 (1958-02-01), Blomgren
patent: 2934228 (1960-04-01), Hillberg
patent: 3066816 (1962-12-01), Schwartz
patent: 3468440 (1969-09-01), Poole
patent: 3707238 (1972-12-01), Thibodeau
patent: 4005788 (1977-02-01), Ratliff
patent: 4168134 (1979-09-01), Pohl
patent: 4168932 (1979-09-01), Clark
Photographic picture of a type of vehicle put upon the market by Unihef ever since 1970, the vehicle comprises all the features mentioned in the claims of EP-A-0235148.
Photocopy of a brochure concerning a Unihef Citroen vehicle, date is 2/74, the vehicle meets all the features mentioned in the claims of EP-A-0235148.
Copy of a Dutch registration certificate of a Unihef-car having registration No. GG-09-BY, the date is Jan. 29, 1980.
Photo picture of the car of enclosure 3.
Copy of a Dutch registration certificate of a Unihef-car having registration No. FK-53-JN, the date is Sep. 19, 1979.
Photo picture of the car of enclosure 5.
Brochure relating to the Unihef-cars, one of the shown cars has registration No. BB-31-LT.
Registration certificate of registration No. BB-31-LT, the date is Aug. 28, 1981.
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