METHOD FOR COLLECTING TOLLS FOR LOCATION USAGES

• US 20110282717A1
• Filed: 04/18/2011
• Published: 11/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Original Assignee: Kapsch TrafficCom AG (Datax Handelsgmbh)
• Inventors: Aschenbrenner, Thomas, Aschenbrenner, Roland, Goldmann, Christian
• Granted Patent: US 8,321,265 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/13
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 15/063 using wireless information transmission between the vehicle and a fixed station identification of vehicles G08G

Abstract

A method for collecting tolls for location usages of an on-board unit, which has a unit identifier in a road toll system and a mobile telecommunications identifier in a mobile telecommunications network. The method includes storing the unit identifier and the mobile telecommunications identifier of the on-board unit in a control centre of the road toll system, sending the position-fix data from the on-board unit, under the mobile telecommunications identifier as sole identification, to a toll calculation server, calculating location-anonymised toll data in the toll calculation server, and sending said toll data under the mobile telecommunications identifier to a control centre of the mobile telecommunications network, charging a user account assigned to the mobile telecommunications identifier in the control centre of the mobile telecommunications network, sending a confirmation to the control centre of the road toll system under the mobile telecommunications identifier, and retrieving the unit identifier associated with the mobile telecommunications identifier and providing the confirmation in the control centre of the road toll system.

Claims

1. A method for collecting tolls for location usages of a position-fixing on-board unit, which has a unit identifier for identification in a road toll system and a mobile telecommunications unit having a separate mobile telecommunications identifier for identification in a mobile telecommunications network, the method comprising:

storing the unit identifier and the mobile telecommunications identifier of the on-board unit as mutually associated data in a control centre of the road toll system;

sending position-fix data from the on-board unit, using the mobile telecommunications identifier as sole identification of the on-board unit, to a toll calculation server of the road toll system;

calculating location-anonymised toll data from the position-fix data in the toll calculation server;

sending the location-anonymised toll data with the mobile telecommunications identifier to a control centre of the mobile telecommunications network;

charging a user account assigned to the mobile telecommunications identifier in the control centre of the mobile telecommunications network according to the received toll data;

sending a confirmation that the account has been charged from the control centre of the mobile telecommunications system to the control centre of the road toll system using the mobile telecommunications identifier; and

retrieving the unit identifier associated with the mobile telecommunications identifier and providing the confirmation using the retrieved unit identifier in the control centre of the road toll system.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

sending the location-anonymised toll data with the mobile telecommunications identifier from the toll calculation server to the control centre of the road toll system,

comparing received toll data with received confirmations using their mobile telecommunications identifiers in the control centre of the road toll system; and

if for toll data of a specific mobile telecommunications identifier, no confirmation having said mobile telecommunications identifier arrives within a time frame, retrieving the associated unit identifier and outputting the associated unit identifier in an alarm message.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the mobile telecommunications identifier is obtained from a SIM card of the mobile telecommunications unit.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the mobile telecommunications identifier is obtained from a SIM card of the mobile telecommunications unit.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the on-board unit generates the position-fix data using a satellite navigation receiver.

6. The method according to claim 2, wherein the on-board unit generates the position-fix data using a satellite navigation receiver.

7. The method according to claim 4, wherein the on-board unit generates the position-fix data using a satellite navigation receiver.