System And Method For Facilitating Parking Enforcement Officer Performance In Real Time With The Aid Of A Digital Computer

• US 20180060795A1
• Filed: 08/26/2016
• Published: 03/01/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Conduent Business Services, LLC (Conduent, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Conduent Business Services, LLC (Conduent, Inc.)
• Inventors: Stefik, Mark J., Singhal, Mudita, Albanese, Kevin, Ali, Farrukh, Bier, Eric A., Bobrow, Daniel G., Cardenas Sanchez, Eduardo, Darst, Matthew T., Eldardiry, Hoda, Gavai, Gaurang, Jia, Lu (Kate), Krivacic, Robert T., Tarkan, Sureyya
• Granted Patent: US 11,126,942 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063116 Schedule adjustment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 15/02 taking into account a variable factor such as distance or time, e.g. for passenger transport, parking systems or car rental systems G07B15/06 takes precedence; taximeters G07B13/00; parking meters per se G07F17/24; car rental systems per se G07B15/00

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating parking enforcement officer performance in real time with the aid of a digital computer is provided. A time-based active representational model of the city is created by fusing sensory data collected from various sources around a city with numerical data gleaned from historical and on-going activities, including parking regulation citation and warning numbers, resource allocations, and so on. The model can be used to form quantitative predictions of expected violations, revenue stream, and so forth, that can then be used as recommendations as to where to enforce and when, so as to maximize the utilization of the limited resources represented by the officers on the street. Moreover, the performance of the officers can be weighed against expectations of performance postulated from the quantitative predictions.

Claims

1. A system for facilitating parking enforcement officer performance in real time with the aid of a digital computer, comprising:

a storage device, comprising;

a definition of a beat within a city for a parking enforcement officer within which enforcement activities are to be performed by the officer; and

a time-based active representational model of the city that comprises estimates of parking violations expected to occur within the beat and which fuses parking citation data with information received from sensors in the city; and

a processor and memory within which code for execution by the processor is stored, further comprising;

an activity planner adapted to build one or more activity plans for the officer comprising issuing citations for parking violations that are expected to occur within the beat based upon the fused information from the active representational model, and to identify those activity plans that optimize performance by the officer;

an observer adapted to regularly track activities of the officer and the officer'"'"'s direction of travel while on the beat; and

an opportunity predictor adapted to identify areas within the beat situated about the officer'"'"'s direction of travel within which the estimated parking violations in the optimal activity plans fall and to generate recommendations for each area identified in real time based upon the officer'"'"'s tracked activities and the enforcement activities performed by the officer.

2. A system according to claim 1, further comprising at least one of:

descriptions comprised in the activity plans structured to an abstract level comprising at least one of regions that are neighborhoods and quadrants of the beat; and

descriptions comprised in the activity plans structured to a detailed level comprising specific directions and locations to patrol at one or more of a street- or block-face level.

3. A system according to claim 1, further comprising at least one of:

descriptions comprised in the activity plan structured to an abstract level comprising providing timing based on periods of the day; and

descriptions comprised in the activity plan structured to a detailed level comprising one or more of timings in an ordered specific fashion, activities that ought to be performed before other activities, and activities to perform during specific time slots.

4. A method for facilitating parking enforcement officer performance in real time with the aid of a digital computer, comprising the steps of:

defining a beat within a city for a parking enforcement officer within which enforcement activities are to be performed by the officer;

fusing parking citation data with information received from sensors in the city into a time-based active representational model of the city that comprises estimates of parking violations expected to occur within the beat;

building one or more activity plans for the officer comprising issuing citations for parking violations that are expected to occur within the beat based upon the fused information from the active representational model;

identifying those activity plans that optimize performance by the officer;

regularly tracking activities of the officer and the officer'"'"'s direction of travel while on the beat; and

identifying areas within the beat situated about the officer'"'"'s direction of travel within which the estimated parking violations in the optimal activity plans fall and generating recommendations for each area identified in real time based upon the officer'"'"'s tracked activities and the enforcement activities performed by the officer.

5. A method according to claim 4, further comprising at least one of the steps of:

structuring descriptions comprised in the activity plans to an abstract level comprising at least one of regions that are neighborhoods and quadrants of the beat; and

structuring descriptions comprised in the activity plans to a detailed level comprising specific directions and locations to patrol at one or more of a street- or block-face level.

6. A method according to claim 4, further comprising at least one of the steps of:

structuring descriptions comprised in the activity plan to an abstract level comprising providing timing based on periods of the day; and

structuring descriptions comprised in the activity plan to a detailed level comprising one or more of timings in an ordered specific fashion, activities that ought to be performed before other activities, and activities to perform during specific time slots.

7. A method according to claim 4, further comprising at least one of the steps of:

collecting historical enforcement data from past parking violations within the bounded area of the beat as part of the parking citation data; and

deriving current enforcement data from the officer'"'"'s tracked activities while on the beat as part of the parking citation data.

8. A method according to claim 4, further comprising the steps of:

setting expectations for the officer based upon the optimal activity plans;

providing the expectations to the officer; and

identifying whether the officer met the expectations based upon differences between the officer'"'"'s expected performance according to the optimal activity plans versus the officer'"'"'s actual performance according to the officer'"'"'s tracked activities.

9. A method according to claim 8, further comprising the step of:

quantifying the expectations based upon at least one of productivity, adherence to following recommendations, activities that were performed by other officers within the officer'"'"'s beat, comparison to performance of other officers, metrics for working hard, and completion of service assignments.

10. A method according to claim 4, further comprising at least one of the steps of:

including characteristics pertaining to the beat when building the activity plans from the group comprising one or more of nature of the beat, time of day, and day of week, season, number of officers on the beat, traffic conditions, and service requirements; and

including factors specific to the officer when building the activity plans from the group comprising the officer'"'"'s level of experience and familiarity with the beat.

11. A method according to claim 4, wherein the activity plans comprise one or more of patrolling, expectations of citations to be found, and services to be performed.

12. A method according to claim 4, further comprising the step of:

computing a likelihood of parking violations based upon parking data generated from one or more of real-time data, spatially sampled historical citation, temporally sampled historical citation, and predictive algorithms.

13. A method according to claim 12, wherein the parking data comprises one or more of parking meter direct payment data, parking meter remote payment data, real time citation issuance data, historical citation issuance data, and data obtained from remote sensors comprising one or more of machine learning, analytics, and CCTV.

14. A method according to claim 4, further comprising the steps of:

following assignment of the officer to respond to either perform a planned event or an unplanned event, building one or more updated activity plans for each of the officers remaining on a team in which the assigned officer is comprised based upon the fused information from the active representational model; and

identifying the updated activity plans that optimize performance by the remaining officers.

15. A method according to claim 4, further comprising at least one of the steps of:

based upon the officer'"'"'s direction of travel, offering proximity alerts and instructions to the officer; and

offering alerts comprising one or more of the service activities that are commonly selected by the officer, that are commonly missed by the officer, and that are likely to result in the issuance of a citation.

16. A method according to claim 4, further comprising at least one of the steps of:

recommending times when the officer should take breaks;

recommending optimal patrol routes for parking enforcement and performance of the service activities; and

recommending a new optimal patrol route should the officer deviate from the recommended optimal patrol route.

17. A method according to claim 4, further comprising at least one of the steps of:

including the officer'"'"'s planned activities in the active representational model and interactively displaying the activities of other nearby officers that interact with the activities and planned activities of the officer;

displaying a path followed by the officer on the beat for an earlier shift; and

generating a summary comprising key performance indicators for the officer comprising one or more of typical citations, citations given, service assignment requests, service assignments performed, breaks expected, breaks taken, gaps between the activity statuses, active time on duty, time or percentage of time on duty, and time or percentage time in performing service activities.

18. A method according to claim 4, further comprising the step of:

interactively interfacing the officer with a dispatcher to whom the officer is responsible; and

enabling the officer to accept or reject requests for assignments to service activities from the dispatcher.

19. A method according to claim 4, further comprising the step of:

interactively interfacing the officer with other officers with whom their activities can be altered or traded.

20. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing code for executing on a computer system to perform the method according to claim 4.