US770814A - Combined ticket and automatic auditing system. - Google Patents

Description

No. 770,814. PATE NTED SEPT. 27, 1904.

COMBINED TICKET AND AUTOMATIC AUDITING SYSTEM.

APPLICATION FILED FEB.17. 1902.

N0 MODEL.

WITNESSES:

UNITED STATES Patented September 27, 1904.

PATENT OEEicE.

JOHN W. LUTZ, OF DAYTON, OHIO, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF TO JOHN E. BRELSFORD, OF DAYTON, OHIO.

COMBINED TICKET AND AUTOMATIC AUDITING SYSTEM.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 770,814, dated September 27, 1904.

Application filed February 1'7, 1902. Serial No. 94,534. (No model.)

To all whont it may concern.-

Be it known that 1, JOHN W. LUTZ, a citizen of the United States, residing at Dayton, in the county of Montgomery and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in a Combined Ticket and Automatic Auditing System; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters of reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

My present invention relates to a combined ticket and automatic auditing system and is the ticket illustrated in Figure 1, but not described or claimed, in an application filed in the United States Patent Office as joint inventors by myself (John W. Lutz) and John E. Brelsford for Device for holding and handling tickets, filed October 19, 1901, Serial No. 79,312, and although said invention is more especially designed and intended for railroad and traction lines it is applicable as well for use in cafes, restaurants, stores, and, in fact, all classes of business houses wherein slips in the form of tickets or coupons are used, having printed, written, or otherwise marked thereon a series of names and numerals or a series of numerals alone as applicable to the nature and line of business in which they are intended to be used, the said numerals representing cash amounts paid and received.

The main objects of this invention are to save time, labor, and expense in issuing, handling, and auditing tickets; also to avoid the necessity of having to keep a great number of different tickets on hand and a cumbersome file-case provided with numerous pigeonholes for their reception. For example, one of my improved tickets as used by railroads and traction-lines is equivalent to as many different tickets in the form and according to the system now used as there are "stations printed or indicated on my said ticket. Thus one of my improved tickets will do away with a whole file-case, (and save the space said case would occupy,) for the reason that my improved ticket will have printed on it the names of all the stations on the road, the name of each one of said stations taking the place of a pigeonhole, while the entire ticket will take the place of all the pigeonholes and the entire file-case. By this invention the tickets that are turned in by the conductor from the passenger need not be audited to ascertain if the agents report is correct, for by this system he can in no Way report anything but the exact condition of his account with the company, and the tickets being all numbered consecutively each ticket has to be accounted for,

and as each stub has the same number of the ticket of which it originally formed a part it will thus bring the entire ticket together again, thus giving a complete record of the transaction and necessarily showing what he has used and the exact value of the ticket he has disposed of. In other words, briefly stated, tickets or slips for indicating sales or cash accounts for use in any class of business places when printed according to my improved system always automatically audit themselves, thus not alone savingthe expense of a large clerical force, but also act as a positive check on any attempt to defraud or steal either by the agent, conductor, clerk, or on the part of the passenger or customer, also preventing any errors from arising in the account. Said tickets, coupons, or slips consist of the peculiar arrangement and combination of the several parts or column or columns of printed matter according to my invention, as will be further referred to in detail hereinafter, and pointed out in the subjoined claims in accordance with the statutes in such cases made and provided therefor.

Referring to the annexed drawings, wherein the same letters of reference indicate like parts wherever they occur throughout the several views, for the purposes of'illustrating the principles of my invention I have shown its application to a ticket as used on a tractionline, for which purpose it is more especially designed, and in which Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a number of traction-tickets in pad form; and Figs. 2 and 3 are face views, respectively, of the ticket originally sold to the passenger and the stub portion which is to be retained by the agent who sold the ticket.

Referring in detail to the different parts of my combined ticket and automatic auditing system, as shown in the accompanying drawings and indicated by means of the letters of reference, as aforesaid, A refers to the tickets, which are intended for convenience to be preferably put up in pad form, as shown in Fig. 1, and numbered consecutively by placing a number, as at a, at the top, also at the stub end or bottom of said ticket, thus identifying each ticket in such a manner as to make it impossible for a ticket or a portion or stub of said ticket to be lost, mislaid, purloined, or in any manner unaccounted for or overlooked without being immediately detected and traced to the person required to give an account of it. 6 refers to the column or series of names of the stations along the line of the road, each station representing a ticket as heretofore employed in the old and usual manner on roads not using my improved system. All that is necessary when a passenger purchases a ticket to a certain point or station is for the agent to tear or otherwise separate the ticket just below and through the space left between this station and the one below it, as clearly illustrated and seen in Fig. 2, in which instance a supposed passenger has purchased a ticket to the station or town named Johnsville and the cash amount paid to the agent as the fare being twenty cents, as indicated by the column of numerals or figures at the left-hand side of said ticket and referred to, as at 0, and when desired to employ my system on tickets to be used in connection with other lines of business wherein it is not essential to use a column or list of names equivalent to column b said column may be dispensed with, and it will then be only necessary to place in the center of said ticket a column of numbers to indicate the amount of cash paid similar to column 0, except in the reverse order-c'. e., as, for example, the column may begin at the top with $1.00 and end with 50., making a gradual decreased or increased difference of five cents, one over the other, said ticket being torn or otherwise separated just below the numeral indicating the amount of cash paid, the same as in the case of the traction-ticket. The stub end thus remaining bearing the same number as is shown at a on the traction-ticket, it will readily be understood that by again bringing the parts of the ticket together it will thus act as an automatic auditing system and also check a customer from attempting to alter his account by tearing off any of the numbers on his ticket, check, or coupon, for the reason that the numbers increase on this class of tickets in this instance from the bottom to the is the auditing-column, the numbers of which v run in the same ratio as the numbers represented in the column of amounts paid and indicated at 0, but only in the reverse order, and, as illustrated, it will be seen that the first numeral in auditing-column (1 begins on the line just below the first line on the ticket (running transversely) in which is the numeral representing the first cash amount paid in column c, the sum-total of these numerals being the entire valuation of the ticketas, for example, in the instance shown in the drawings, the first numeral represented in column 0 of ticket A is 5, which stands for five cents, and the first numeral in the line below, but in column d, is 40, which stands for forty cents, and by adding these two numerals the entire valuation of the ticket, which is fortyfive cents, is obtained, which is the last number indicated in the amount-paid column. As a further example and as seen in the instance illustrated in the drawings in Fig. 2, the 20 in amount-paid column 0 (being the amount paid) is to be added to 25 in auditing-column OZ, (shown in Fig. 3,) which is forty-five and is the total valuation of the ticket, as indicated by the last numeral in column 0, also by the small-sized number 4:5, and the name of the station Eaton just below is placed in this position for the purpose of indicating the valuation of the ticket; also the last-named station on the stub after the last-named station Eaton has been torn off of the ticket in cases where the entire ticket has been used.

In Fig. 3 I have shown the other section or part of ticket No. 248 from Dayton to J ohnsville, just referred to, and which carries at its end the stub that is to be retained by the agent as his voucher and turned in to the main ofiice.

It will be readily understood that my combined ticket and auditing system when suitably arranged for round-trip tickets for traction and railroadlines can be employed equally as well as on single or one-trip tickets, and it is therefore unnecessary to illustrate a roundtrip form, as the principle is the same throughout, the only diflerence being that in the case of a double or round-trip ticket it is to be printed on a slip wide enough for two singletrip or one-way tickets, as shown in the drawings, and arranged side by side and provided with a central longitudinal dividing-line of small perforations, so that the ticket can readily be divided and one half used in going and the other half used on the return trip. The only difference in said double or round-trip ticket from the single or one-trip, as shown and described, consists simply in increasing the amounts in both amount paid and auditor columns in accordance with the round-trip fare.

It will of course be obvious that the principles of my invention are applicable to other classes of business otherwise than in the instance herein shown and described; also, that numerals of other denominations from those here shown to represent various amounts may be used, and the increase or decrease difference between the numerals of different tickets may vary from the instance here shown.

I am well aware that it is not broadly new to produce a ticket upon which are printed names and numerals arranged in various forms; but I am not aware of any ticket having my form or combination and arrangement of parts and which will accomplish the result of acting as a check on dishonest persons and also at the same time automatically audit itself, as hereinbefore described.

What I claim is- A ticket having on one of its faces the following: the number, the issuing-station, a column of stations to which the ticket may be issued, the name of the last station and the amount of the fare thereto being duplicated, the amount of fare to the several stations being located on one side of the column of stations, and an auditing-column located on the opposite side of the station-column, said auditing-column indicating, with the amount of the fare paid, the maximum value of the ticket.

In testimony whereof I have aflixed my signature in presence of two witnesses.

JOHN W. LUTZ.

Witnesses:

JOHN E. BRELSFORD, FRANK M. BURNI-IAM.

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