Electronic transit fare card system
First Claim
1. A card system for accessing a public transit system comprising:
- a card pre-encoded with trip data permitting a set number of trips on the transit system;
a card processing unit to receive and process a card each time access to the transit system is desired, the card processing unit including;
means to track the time;
means to write to the card the time of current use of the card in the card processing unit;
means to read from the card the time of last use;
logic means to compute the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use;
means to read the encoded trip data to determine the number of trips remaining on the card; and
means to modify the trip data of the card to decrement the number of trips by a given amount;
whereby the means to modify the trip data and the means to write to the card the time of current use are employed only if the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use is greater than a preset period.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A card system and method for accessing a public transit system that employs a card pre-encoded with trip data permitting a set number of trips on the transit system and a card processing unit to receive and process a card each time access to the transit system is desired. The card processing unit includes a time write head to record the time of current use on the card and a time read head to retrieve the time of last use from the card. A microprocessor computes the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use. A trip read head scans the encoded trip data to determine the number of trips remaining on the card and a trip write head is provided to write to the card to decrement the number of trips by a given amount after use. The trip write head and the time write head are employed only if the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use is greater than a preset period. The card system automatically handles access to the transit system and transfers from one transit vehicle to another within the transit system thereby permitting faster vehicle loading, reduced fare evasion and increased driver concentration on vehicle operation.
34 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A card system for accessing a public transit system comprising:
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a card pre-encoded with trip data permitting a set number of trips on the transit system; a card processing unit to receive and process a card each time access to the transit system is desired, the card processing unit including; means to track the time; means to write to the card the time of current use of the card in the card processing unit; means to read from the card the time of last use; logic means to compute the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use; means to read the encoded trip data to determine the number of trips remaining on the card; and means to modify the trip data of the card to decrement the number of trips by a given amount; whereby the means to modify the trip data and the means to write to the card the time of current use are employed only if the difference between the time of current use and the time of last use is greater than a preset period. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method for accessing a public transit system comprising the steps of:
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providing a card encoded with data permitting a set number of trips on the transit system; inserting the card into a card processing unit each time access to the transit system is desired, the card processing unit acting on first insertion of the card to; write the current time to the card; decrement the number of trips encoded on the card by a given amount; and for each subsequent insertion of the card, read the time of last use, compute the difference between the time of last use and the current time, and decrement the number of trips by a given amount and write the current time to the card only if the difference in time is greater than a set period. - View Dependent Claims (18)
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Specification