SMART TRANPORTATION SERVICES & PAYMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20130246132A1
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Published: 09/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: David J. Buie
• Original Assignee: David J. Buie
• Inventors: BUIE, David J.
• Application Number:
  US13/839,841
• Publication Number:
  US 20130246132A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/13
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/0014 for vending, access and use of specific services not covered anywhere else in G07F17/00 meter-controlled dispensing of liquid, gas or electricity G07F15/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 9/001 Interfacing with vending machines using mobile or wearable devices

Abstract

A method and system for paying for transportation and/or transportation support services and providing member services associated with the transportation is provided. The method includes relating a member-user to a given transportation service entity by Smartphone (iPhone, Android, or similar), Cellular phone, Special Debit Card/Smart Card, registered LPR, RFID, etc. The method further includes automatically debiting an established “Transportation Replenishing Member Payment Account” with funds to pay a transportation support service entity, and invoking one or more member services, in addition to crediting the TRMPA upon redemption of an authorized/authenticated parking credit or special offer.

Claims

1. A transportation services system, comprising:

one or more physical processors; and

storage media storing machine-readable instructions that cause the one or more physical processors to;

receive, via a transportation service provider point-of-service device, information pertaining to a transportation service transaction;

receive user account identifying information associated with the transportation service transaction;

determine a user account associated with the user account identifying information;

authenticate the user account identifying information; and

responsive to successful authentication of the user account identifying information, invoke one or more user-specific member services associated with the identifying information-associated user account and debit the identifying information-associated user account to pay for a service provided by the transportation service provider.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the user account identifying information is received via the transportation service provider point-of-service device and comprises at least one of smart card information, license plate information, NFC identification, a QR code, a barcode, RFID information, or authenticated User name and Password.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the user account identifying information is received from a member-user, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

receive location-verification information from the member-user;

wherein the location-verification information comprises at least one of information displayed by the transportation service provider point-of-service device and member-user mobile device geographic information.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the user account identifying information comprises a user account identification code.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising the transportation service provider point-of-service device, wherein the transportation service provider point-of-service device comprises at least one of an RFID reader, license plate reader, NFC device, and a display comprising encoded identifying information for the transportation service provider point-of-service device.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the user account identifying information is received from a member-user, wherein the information pertaining to the transportation service transaction comprises information from at least one of an RFID reader, license plate reader, NFC device, and a display of the transportation service provider point-of-service device as set by the member-user.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the user-specific member services comprise user-defined payment method and account replenishment services, wherein the user-defined payment method and account replenishment services comprise determining whether a predefined threshold level of funds has been reached in the user account and, responsive to a determination that the threshold level of funds has been reached, refilling the user account with a predetermined amount of funds using a financial account linked to the user account.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the user-specific member services comprise user-defined transportation service provider alerts, wherein at least one of the form-factor of the alerts, time-intervals of the alerts, content of the alerts, and triggers for the alerts are user-defined.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the user-specific member services comprise user-defined parking space controls configured to remotely add time to a parking space reservation manually or according to pre-defined rules.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

receive a request for one or more user-specific member services associated with the identifying information-associated user account and invoke the requested user-specific member services, wherein the requested user-specific member services comprise occupancy maps configured to display parking space locations and availability and nearby business offers.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

receive a request for one or more user-specific member services associated with the identifying information-associated user account and invoke the requested user-specific member services, wherein the requested user-specific member services comprise proactive parking directions configured to dynamically direct a user to a specific parking area based on an intended user destination, time to arrival, parking space availability, and expected future parking space availability.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

receive a request for one or more user-specific member services associated with the identifying information-associated user account and invoke the requested user-specific member services, wherein the requested user-specific member services comprise at least one of member-specific and fleet-specific management reports displaying travel behaviors, transportation service utilization, and credits received filtered by a time period or other user-defined criteria.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to receive, via a plurality of transportation service provider point-of-service devices controlled by a plurality of transportation service providers, information pertaining to transportation service transactions associated with a single member-user, and invoke member services defined by the member-user for each of the transportation service transactions.

25. The system of claim 1, wherein the user account identifying information is received from a user-member, wherein the user account identifying information comprises at least one of a license plate number, an RFID identification number, a mobile phone identification, an NFC identifier, and a barcode or QR-code.

2. The system of claim 2, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

receive, via a business credit device, a request for credit comprising a unique business location identifier;

determine a business-user account associated with the unique device identifier;

establish a transaction and associate system-created information and business-user defined information with the transaction, wherein the information associated with the transaction comprises details of a user account credit;

receive a request to apply the credit associated with the transaction to a requested user account;

determine whether and how to apply the credit to the requested user account based on parking services payment transaction information associated with the requested user account; and

responsive to a determination to apply the credit to the requested user account in a certain manner, apply the credit accordingly.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

transmit to the business credit device instructions for generating a coupon comprising information associated with the transaction, including a credit request transaction identification code;

wherein the request to apply the credit is received from a member-user associated with the requested user account and comprises the credit request transaction identification code and member-user identifying information.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the determination of whether to apply the credit to the requested user account comprises a determination as to whether the requested user account contains a record of purchased parking services in a geographic area and at a time consistent with the information associated with the transaction.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein whether a geographic area and time of a parking service purchase is consistent with information associated with the transaction is determined based on pre-defined system-wide business rules.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein whether a geographic area and time of a parking service purchase is consistent with information associated with the transaction is determined based on rules that are at least in part set by a business-user associated with the business-user account.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

apply a debit corresponding to the credit to the registered business-user account; and

catalogue and store details of the credit and debit applied as a billing record element.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein the request to apply the credit is received with the request for credit, at least one of which comprises member-user identifying information.

9. The system of claim 2, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

authenticate a business-user;

associate the unique device identifier with the business-user account; and

receive information from the business-user and associate it with the business-user account.

10. The system of claim 2, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

receive from a business-user and associate with the business-user account information comprising at least one of a designated area in which a member-user must be parked for credit to be applied to the member-user'"'"'s user account and particular types of transportation services the credit may be applied against; and

using the information when determining whether and how to apply the credit.

22. The system of claim 2, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause the one or more physical processors to:

receive a request associated with the business-user account for business user-specific member services and invoke the requested business user-specific member services, wherein the requested business user-specific member services comprise reports displaying information relating to the transportation services utilized by patrons who received credits from the business-user account.

23. A transportation services method, comprising:

receiving, via a transportation service provider point-of-service device, information pertaining to a transportation service transaction;

receiving user account identifying information associated with the transportation service transaction;

determining a user account associated with the user account identifying information;

authenticating the user account identifying information;

responsive to successful authentication of the user account identifying information, invoking one or more user-specific member services associated with the identifying information-associated user account and debiting the identifying information-associated user account to pay for a service provided by the transportation service provider;

receiving, via a business credit device, a request for credit comprising a unique device identifier;

determining a business-user account associated with the unique device identifier;

establishing a transaction and associating system-created information and business-user defined information with the transaction, wherein the information associated with the transaction comprises details of a user account credit;

receiving a request to apply the credit associated with the transaction to a requested user account;

determining whether and how to apply the credit to the requested user account based on parking services payment transaction information associated with the requested user account; and

responsive to a determination to apply the credit to the requested user account in a certain manner, applying the credit accordingly.