EP2143078A2

EP2143078A2 - Method for paying for parking spots and means for implementing same including a vehicle location device

Info

Publication number: EP2143078A2
Application number: EP08788059A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Jean Horteur
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2007-03-28
Filing date: 2008-03-27
Publication date: 2010-01-13
Also published as: WO2008132411A3; WO2008132411A2; FR2914470A1; FR2914470B1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for paying for spots in pay parking areas occupied by a vehicle (1), characterised in that it comprises, for a user: locating a vehicle at standstill using a satellite geo-location system (2); by comparison with a file of the pay area lessors recorded in a database managed by a distant server, determining if the vehicle is at a standstill in a pay area; recording on the distant server the exact arrival and departure time of the vehicle in said pay area; calculating a price corresponding to the parking duration in said area based on rate tables defined by the lessor; compiling on the distant server and for a given period the parking durations of a same subscriber on the areas belonging to one or more lessors in the database; collecting from the subscriber the entire sums due; and redistributing the sums due to the different rightful owners.

Description

METHOD OF PAYING PARKING SPACES AND ITS MEANS OF IMPLEMENTING

WORK COMPRISING A DEVICE FOR LOCATING A VEHICLE

The present invention relates to a method of recovery of sums due by a subscriber for the occupation of paid parking and the means used to perform the process.

Currently, when a vehicle is parked on a parking spot in a paid parking area, in streets or car parks, either it pays the amount due when it picks up its vehicle, or it pays in advance by buying a ticket , and the amount is based on a schedule based on time bands; each zone or each car park having its own pricing and its own collection management.

For the user this has many disadvantages: obligation to leave the vehicle to pay the amount due and / or to look for a ticket. or the obligation to have a payment card specific to the car park or the parking area, this card not being usable in other agglomerations or other parking managers. This expense is generally greater than the actual parking time due to time slot pricing. obligation to have money in cash or a payment card.

The invention aims to overcome all these drawbacks of the prior art in order to give a user the possibility of periodically adjusting, at a fixed frequency, all the paid parking periods he has used during the defined period, this whatever the zones, or the car parks that he used in any agglomeration and which adhere to the process.

This object is achieved by the invention which consists in a method of recovering amounts due when at least one vehicle (11) of at least one user is occupied with places on paid parking zones at various rates. characterized in that for a user who has subscribed a subscription from a provider, said service provider performs the following operations: location of each vehicle stationary, by means of a geolocation system (2) by satellite installed on the vehicle , and comparison with a file of paid area rental companies listed in a given database managed by a remote server of the vehicle so as to determine if the vehicle is stationary on a pay area, recording on a remote server the exact time of arrival on the pay zone detected in the preceding step ^' and departure of the vehicle of said pay zone, calculation by a remote server of the price corresponding to the duration of the parking on said zone according to the tariff grids specific to the renter of said pay zone, accounting on a remote server and over a given period of time of parking of the same subscriber on the zones belonging to to one or more hirers of the database, collecting by a remote server the total amount due from the subscriber, redistribution by a remote server sums due to different beneficiaries.

For each lessor, one manually delineates all the paid parking zones corresponding to the tariff plan of the said renter.

The means for implementing the method mainly comprise, in combination, a satellite geographical location device installed on a vehicle and a device also installed on the vehicle and able to remotely exchange data (E, T) with at least one server ( If) remote from the vehicle, these data making it possible to establish a file of the sums due by the subscriber who holds the vehicle

The invention will be better understood on reading the following description made with reference to the appended figures. Figure 1 symbolizes a vehicle in motion then stopped, as well as the means of communication and data processing data. Figure 2 is an example of paid area mapping that can be manually established on an existing plan.

The means used by a method according to the invention consist essentially of: a device for geolocation (2) of a housing (8) installed on a vehicle (1), for example of the type known as GPS which in addition to its usual function of locating the vehicle on a card by data exchange (D) with one or more satellites (4), is able to remotely exchange data (E, T) with a server (Si), a display screen (3) of information eg subscriber number and / or parking time and possibly the price to pay, installed in the vehicle (2), a computer server (S ₁ ) whose functions are:

. to manage a mapping of the paid parking zones, this cartography is preferentially a set of maps on which a The operator manually identifies the pay zones for each rate as will be described at the end of the description.

. processing the data (T) received from the locating device (1) in order to calculate the duration of the parking, the data (T) are in particular the location of the vehicle calculated by means of the data exchange (D) between the satellite (4) ) and the vehicle.

. to send on the screen, information (E) relating to the subscriber (an identification number) and / or parking (duration, location, etc. ..) for the police, guarding or other management staff of the paying area,

. to also send this information and the identification of the vehicle to another server (S ₂ ) via a link (L ₁ ), a computer server (S ₂ ) which manages:

. a database of subscribers who subscribe to the centralized payment system according to the invention, each subscriber being able to possess one or more vehicles,

. a database of municipalities and other renters of the said parking areas,

. an information processing system arriving via the link (L ₁ ) for recording the exact time of stopping the vehicle (to the nearest minute or second) on an area identified in the database, and record the exact time of departure of the vehicle (to the nearest minute or second),

. to constitute management files including the sums owed by the subscriber and may also include an amount for membership, and / or subscription or management fees. The sums also take into account the tariffs of each renter: free period, hourly rate etc. The files may also include other data for example to form occupancy statistics or other ...

. to send the management files to a server (S ₃ ) via a link (L ₂ ), a computer server (S ₃ ) which processes the data on the financial plane, that is to say that it records for each subscribed the amount due over a given period and for all of its vehicles, collect the amounts owed by each subscriber and bill them, pay the amounts collected on a management account. The mode of collection among subscribers is symbolized by links (L ₃ ) and uses at the customer's choice a method of withdrawal on credit card, or card or any other formula. The server (S ₃ ) carries out the collections at a predetermined time interval, for example a month, and issues the corresponding invoices, available on the internet or by mail. then the server constitutes a transfer file and returns to each renter sums that are due to him by transfer to his bank account (links L ₄ ), and to the service provider holding the method according to the invention (link L ₅ ), the sums which are also due to him by the subscriber and / or by the customer as for example expenses of file, and / or expenses of management and / or subscription, etc.

To carry out communications from the vehicle to the server or servers and / or vice versa to the vehicle, the service provider provides the subscriber with a housing (8) specifically designed for the implementation of the method and which contains the geolocation system ( 2) as well as an electronic chip programmed to send and / or receive the computer data on a principle of teletransmission by telephone

Internet Protocol known under the abbreviation IP and programmable by the skilled person. It also provides a screen (3) specifically designed to receive the data (E) sent by the server (S1). The housing (8) and the screen (3) also contain the necessary power supply means for example battery or connection means on a cigarette lighter socket of the vehicle.

The advantages of the method according to the invention include the following: allow a motorist to park on paid sites and pay the actual cost of parking without having personal management, carry out this operation without having to leave his vehicle, without money on oneself, without moving for the search of a ticket, without having a parking card of the good city and allows to benefit from personalized benefits, also no search of terminal of payment, not setting up a voucher and billing only the real time of parking, possibility of granting advantages to the subscriber according to his function (health personnel for example), his condition (disabled for example) or according to any other criteria, possibility of disconnect the link with the server for confidential routes and maintain the route guidance function, possibility of locating a stolen car to a member, thanks to the tracking of the geographical location given by the GPS. possibility of remotely preventing the restart of the stolen and localized vehicle, for example by checking a password stored on the remote server and typed on a keyboard of the vehicle. possibility of adapting an additional box to an existing GPS installation to add the necessary functions, or possibility of directly installing a complete device integrating the functions of geolocation and links to the servers, one can also add other information which complete or repeat the functions, possibility of using other localization standards (for example the one known under the name GALILEO), possibility of grouping two of the servers or possibly of grouping the three servers into one combining all the functions, possibility for a guard or police service to read the information displayed on the vehicle screen and to consult, remotely (for example by telephone) the database server (S ₂ ) to check whether the vehicle belongs to a subscriber, for example by means of coded information displayed on the vehicle, and if the verification is negative and if There is fraud, there is verbalization.

It is specified here that the term geo-location means geographical location of a vehicle on a map contained in the databases.

It is specified that the servers S ₁ , S ₂ , S ₃ can be grouped into a single server, are computer servers designed by the service provider, which manage all the information sent or sent remotely to all subscribers' vehicles and which contain data storage and storage units (cards, identifiers, etc.) as well as time counting units.

The term "parking zone" is also used because according to the precision of the geolocation system (of several meters at present and less than one meter in the future) it is sufficient to know that the vehicle has just entered a street or a set of paid streets, or in a paid parking without this precision influences the principle of calculation and management of the payment, of course with the evolution of the precision of the system of localization the zone will be able to correspond precisely to a place or several places.

"Lessor" means all private or public bodies that offer paid parking areas. In order to establish the price schedules and the maps, each renter provides the service provider with the maps or plans delimiting the paid zones belonging to him and the rate (s) corresponding to each paying zone. By way of example, FIG. 2 shows a city plan with street areas (R ₁ to R ₂ ) and streets (R ₅ to R ₁₀ ) at different rates.

The provider or one of its operators saves for each pricing the location of the pay area for example by means of an optical drive moved to said area.

The housing also provides any sensor or motion sensor to recognize whether the vehicle is stationary or moving. Preferably the data (T) is sent to the server (1) only if the stop-motion recognition means has recognized that the vehicle is stationary.

Claims

1. A method of recovering the sums due when at least one vehicle (1 1) occupies at least one user, of places on paid parking zones with various charges, characterized in that for a user who has subscribed a service provider, the service provider performs the following operations: localization of each stationary vehicle by means of a satellite based geolocation system (2) installed on the vehicle comparison with a file of the paid area rental companies in a given database managed by a remote server of the vehicle so as to determine whether the vehicle is stationary on a pay zone, recording on a remote server the exact time of arrival on the pay zone detected at the step preceding and departure of the vehicle of said pay zone, calculated by a remote server the price corresponding to the duration of parking on said area according to the grids tariffs specific to the renter of said pay zone, accounting on a remote server and over a given period of time of parking of the same subscriber on the zones belonging to one or more renters of the database, collection by a remote server of the total of the sums due to the subscriber, redistribution by a remote server of sums due to the various rights holders.

2. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that before manually delimits for each renter on a map all paid parking areas corresponding to the tariff schedule of said renter.

3. Method according to one of claims 1 to 2, characterized in that displays on a screen (3) installed in the vehicle information for the management staff of the paying area.

4. Method according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that further remotely prevents the start of a vehicle of the subscriber by an unauthorized driver.

5. Method according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that one further consults the server remotely to check whether a given vehicle belongs to a subscriber.

6. Set of payment parking management and payment means characterized in that it is designed to implement a method according to one of claims 1 to 5 and characterized in that it comprises in combination a device a satellite geographical location installed on a vehicle and a device also installed on the vehicle and able to remotely exchange computer data (E, T) with at least one server (S ₁ ) remote from the vehicle, these data making it possible to establish a file of the sums due by the holder subscriber of the vehicle.

7. A set of means according to claim 6, characterized in that it further comprises a screen installed on the vehicle displaying information for the management staff of the pay zone and sent by the server (S-i).

8. A set of means according to one of claims 6 to 7, characterized in that it comprises means for disconnecting the link with the server and maintain the route guidance.

9. Electronic box (8) characterized in that it is specifically designed for the exchange of data to implement the method according to claims 1 to 5 and characterized in that it comprises the geolocation system (2) and an electronic chip programmed for transmissions in "Internet Protocol" mode.

10. Electronic box according to claim 9 characterized in that it contains a means of recognizing whether the vehicle is stationary or moving.