Smart parking meter system
First Claim
1. An apparatus for use in controlling parking comprising:
- a plurality of parking meter elements each for mounting on a support adjacent a parking location, each parking meter element including;
a payment receptacle operable by a person parking a vehicle for receiving a payment from the person;
a display for displaying an allowable time of parking;
a sensor for detecting the presence of a vehicle in the associated parking location;
a control module responsive to the payment receptacle and the sensor and arranged to control the display;
at least one transportable communication unit for transportation by and manual operation by an attendant including a control module for communicating with the parking meter elements;
the control module of each of the parking meter elements and the control module of the communication unit including communications protocols by which each of the parking meter elements and the communications unit communicate to each other via a wireless medium;
some of the parking meter elements being identified together in a group thereof such that the group and the transportable communication unit form a network;
wherein the control module of each of the parking meter elements of the group have the communication protocol thereof arranged such that each parking meter element of the group is able to communicate over a wireless medium with each other parking meter element of the group and with the transportable communication unit.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A Smart Parking Meter System makes it possible to track whether or not a vehicle occupies parking meter stalls and whether or not the time has expired. The system uses a wireless communication protocol which may be of the type known under the trade mark “Bluetooth” and provides the portability of embedded systems and the convenience of personal digital assistants with the powers of the C and Java programming languages. There are two main components to the Smart Parking Meter System, the handheld device, or the PDA, and the actual parking meters. Each device has the Smart Parking Meter System application installed in it, as well as the wireless modules, such as Bluetooth to use as a communication medium. The parking meters also have a motion sensor to detect any movement within it view range. The handheld device is able to extract all the parking states for each parking meter within a block or street depending on user configuration of system.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. An apparatus for use in controlling parking comprising:
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a plurality of parking meter elements each for mounting on a support adjacent a parking location, each parking meter element including;
a payment receptacle operable by a person parking a vehicle for receiving a payment from the person;
a display for displaying an allowable time of parking;
a sensor for detecting the presence of a vehicle in the associated parking location;
a control module responsive to the payment receptacle and the sensor and arranged to control the display;
at least one transportable communication unit for transportation by and manual operation by an attendant including a control module for communicating with the parking meter elements;
the control module of each of the parking meter elements and the control module of the communication unit including communications protocols by which each of the parking meter elements and the communications unit communicate to each other via a wireless medium;
some of the parking meter elements being identified together in a group thereof such that the group and the transportable communication unit form a network;
wherein the control module of each of the parking meter elements of the group have the communication protocol thereof arranged such that each parking meter element of the group is able to communicate over a wireless medium with each other parking meter element of the group and with the transportable communication unit. - View Dependent Claims (8)
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2. An apparatus for use in controlling parking comprising:
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a plurality of parking meter elements each for mounting on a support adjacent a parking location, each parking meter element including;
a payment receptacle operable by a person parking a vehicle for receiving a payment from the person;
a display for displaying an allowable time of parking;
a sensor for detecting the presence of a vehicle in the associated parking location;
a control module responsive to the payment receptacle and the sensor and arranged to control the display;
at least one transportable communication unit for transportation by and manual operation by an attendant including a control module for communicating with the parking meter elements;
the control module of each of the parking meter elements and the control module of the communication unit including a communications protocol by which each of the parking meter elements and the communications unit communicate to each other via a wireless medium;
some of the parking meter elements being identified together in a group thereof such that the group and the transportable communication unit form a network;
wherein the control module of each of the parking meter elements of the group have the communication protocol thereof arranged such that each parking meter element of the group is able to communicate over a wireless medium with each other parking meter element of the group and with the transportable communication unit;
wherein the group covers a greater geographical area than a range of communication of the wireless medium and wherein each parking meter element has the control module thereof arranged to communicate with next adjacent ones of the other parking meter elements of the group and arranged such that each parking meter element generates a table containing the statue of all of the parking meter elements of the group whereby each parking meter element can communicate to the transportable communication unit the status of all. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. An apparatus for use in controlling parking comprising:
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a plurality of parking meter elements each for mounting on a support adjacent a parking location, each parking meter element including;
a payment receptacle operable by a person parking a vehicle for receiving a payment from the person;
a display for displaying an allowable time of parking;
a sensor for detecting the presence of a vehicle in the associated parking location;
a control module responsive to the payment receptacle and the sensor and arranged to control the display;
at least one transportable communication unit for transportation by and manual operation by an attendant including a control module for communicating with the parking meter elements;
the control module of each of the parking meter elements and the control module of the communication unit including communications protocols by which each of the parking meter elements and the communications unit communicate to each other via a wireless medium;
some of the parking meter elements being identified together in a group thereof such that the group and the transportable communication unit form a network;
wherein the control module of each of the parking meter elements of the group have the communication protocol thereof arranged such that each parking meter element of the group is able to communicate over a wireless medium with each other parking meter element of the group and with the transportable communication unit;
wherein the control modules of the parking meter elements and of the transportable communication unit are arranged such that the communication protocol uses event driven communication so that the parking meter elements of the group and the transportable communication unit are only attempting to open connections at appropriate times in order to reduce or eliminate paging collisions where the network is in a constant listening state, and a single master controls the entire network so that the master has a list of every parking meter element in the group and it has information about which parking meter elements can be contacted by other parking meter elements to make a connected loop back to itself and where, if the meters are not configured in a loop, then it is able to detect and correct that. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15)
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Specification