Parking payment and enforcement mechanism
First Claim
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1. A method of detecting a violation of a parking payment comprising steps of:
- a) associating in real time, for each pre-registered parked vehicle, vehicle signature with a corresponding parking status, wherein vehicle signature represents at least one characteristic of the parked vehicle, and the corresponding parking status represents a status of parking payment for the parked vehicle, wherein the characteristics include characteristics of permanent type which are independent of the vehicle'"'"'s parking state and characteristics that are automatically acquired by the parker'"'"'s device;
b) acquiring a vehicle information of inspected vehicle, triggered by an operator'"'"'s device, wherein the vehicle information represents the same characteristics as represented by the vehicle signature;
c) matching the vehicle information with a subset of the vehicle signatures that are associated to the corresponding parking status based on matching criteria, wherein said subset can be the entire group of the vehicle signatures that are associated to the corresponding parking status;
d) retrieving the parking status associated with the vehicle signature which satisfies said matching criteria;
e) signaling through said operator'"'"'s device to the operator if a parking payment is made properly based on the retrieved parking status;
whereby enabling parker to pay for the parking using his own device, while completely eliminating or significantly reducing the amount of payment related information that the parker has to enter when the parker pays for the parking and at the same time transparently to the operator signaling the parking status and allowing the operator to automatically determine if the payment violation occurred.
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Abstract
This application describes a means of paying for metered parking using the cell phone. It uses information from telecommunications systems to identify the region of the origin of the caller and the caller'"'"'s parking location. Further input is used during the call to narrow the region to the specific city and the parking rate to be charged. This method saves the user from entering different phone numbers for different town and fewer digits than the alternative of numbering individual meters. Furthermore, it saves the towns from numbering all their meters as proposed by existing methods. It also describes improved methods for enforcements.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method of detecting a violation of a parking payment comprising steps of:
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a) associating in real time, for each pre-registered parked vehicle, vehicle signature with a corresponding parking status, wherein vehicle signature represents at least one characteristic of the parked vehicle, and the corresponding parking status represents a status of parking payment for the parked vehicle, wherein the characteristics include characteristics of permanent type which are independent of the vehicle'"'"'s parking state and characteristics that are automatically acquired by the parker'"'"'s device; b) acquiring a vehicle information of inspected vehicle, triggered by an operator'"'"'s device, wherein the vehicle information represents the same characteristics as represented by the vehicle signature; c) matching the vehicle information with a subset of the vehicle signatures that are associated to the corresponding parking status based on matching criteria, wherein said subset can be the entire group of the vehicle signatures that are associated to the corresponding parking status; d) retrieving the parking status associated with the vehicle signature which satisfies said matching criteria; e) signaling through said operator'"'"'s device to the operator if a parking payment is made properly based on the retrieved parking status; whereby enabling parker to pay for the parking using his own device, while completely eliminating or significantly reducing the amount of payment related information that the parker has to enter when the parker pays for the parking and at the same time transparently to the operator signaling the parking status and allowing the operator to automatically determine if the payment violation occurred. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method for determining a parker'"'"'s account, a parking rate and a parking provider based on the location of the parked car comprising the steps of:
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a) acquiring a location information representing a parking region of the parked vehicle such that the parking region is larger than the area of a single parking spot wherein the parking region includes one or more rate areas where each rate area has the same parking rate and the same parking provider and is represented by a parking rate id; b) receiving said location information associated with a parker'"'"'s device id representing a parker account; and c) determining the parking rate the parker should be charged and the parking provider that should be paid based on said location information; whereby enabling to completely eliminate or significantly reduce the amount of information the parker has to enter in order to pay for the parking, even if the parkers have a cell phone with limited or no capabilities of detecting the parking region, while still providing a universal, scalable solution to identify the parker, the rate the parker should be charged and the parking provider. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method of automatically monitoring a parking status of a parked vehicle by a parker'"'"'s device transparently to the parker comprising steps of:
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generating events by a parker'"'"'s device indicating movement of the vehicle; updating by said parker'"'"'s device a parking status based on the generated event and a vehicle state, indicating at least when car parked and when car ended the parking; whereby enabling of gathering of information of when, where and for how long vehicles park. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22)
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Specification