System for tracking suspicious vehicular activity

• US 7,382,277 B2
• Filed: 06/16/2005
• Issued: 06/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2003
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Edward D. Ioli Trust
• Inventors: Ioli Trust, Edward D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Crosland; Donnie L
• Application Number:
  US11/156,380
• Publication Number:
  US 20050270178A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,083 Days
• Field of Search: 340/932.2, 340/5.83, 340/425.5, 340/928, 382/104, 382/105, 235/384
• US Class Current: 340/932.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 15/00 Arrangements or apparatus for collecting fares, tolls or entrance fees at one or more control points handling coins or valuable papers, e.g. banknotes, G07D; apparatus for vending or hiring articles or services activated by coins, credit cards, paper currency or the like G07F7/00, G07F17/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0175 by photographing vehicles, e.g. when violating traffic rules
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/207 with respect to certain areas, e.g. forbidden or allowed areas with possible alerting when inside or outside boundaries

Abstract

A system for monitoring and tracking vehicles in parking locations, public roadways and highway entrances and exits and other public vehicle access areas and to monitor and track vehicles in parking spaces, public roadways and highways without the need for parking or traffic personnel. The system includes a meter system that generates image data of a vehicle in a parking space, public roadway and highway entrances and exits such as by creating an array of pixel data in a predetermined field of view that includes a vehicle identification tag and facial imaging. An enforcement and tracking system receives the image data to identify the vehicle license number, vehicle tag identification number and facial image based on the expected location of the license tag, identification tag and field of view image data characteristics of the license tag, facial image or other suitable data. From the image data acquired, monitoring of parking spaces is performed and violation citations or notices are generated.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring suspicious vehicular activity comprising:

receiving one set of image data of a plurality of vehicles;

extracting identifying feature data from the image data for each of the plurality of vehicles;

transmitting the identifying feature data and first location data to a tracking system;

determining whether the identifying feature data matches stored identifying feature data obtained from a second location; and

generating an alert if the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data obtained from the second location.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein extracting the identifying feature data from the image data comprises extracting license tag data.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein extracting the identifying feature data from the image data comprises extracting facial image data of a driver.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data obtained from the second location further comprises determining whether first location type data matches second location type data.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data obtained from the second location and generating the alert if the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data obtained from the second location comprises:

determining whether the identifying feature data matches stored identifying feature data obtained from the first location from a previous time;

determining whether the identifying feature data and the stored identifying feature data obtained from the first location from the previous time are associated with an authorized vehicle; and

generating the alert if the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data obtained from the first location from the previous time if the vehicle is not an authorized vehicle.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein determining whether the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data obtained from the second location comprises:

comparing the identifying feature data to a predetermined set of allowable identifying feature data for the first location data; and

comparing the identifying feature data to a watch list of identifying feature data if the identifying feature data does not match any of the predetermined set of allowable identifying feature data for the first location data.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising storing the identifying feature data to the watch list of identifying feature data.

8. A system for identifying suspicious vehicles by monitoring parking outside of predetermined facilities comprising:

a monitoring system for receiving a single set of image data of a plurality of vehicles outside of a facility and generating vehicle feature data for each of the plurality of vehicles from the image data; and

a watch list system for receiving the vehicle feature data for each vehicle, storing the vehicle feature data and associated location data, and determining whether any of the vehicle feature data matches stored vehicle feature data.

9. The system of claim 8 further comprising a jurisdiction system for generating jurisdiction notification data if the vehicle feature data matches the stored vehicle feature data on a watch list of vehicle feature data.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the monitoring system further comprises a facial image system for extracting facial image data of vehicle occupants from the image data, wherein the vehicle feature data is the facial image data.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the facial image system can provide the facial image data to a jurisdiction system for generating jurisdiction notification data if the facial image data matches the facial image data on a watch list of facial image data.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the monitoring system comprises means for activating a monitoring system and storing video data.

13. The system of claim 8 wherein the watch list system comprises means for providing notification data to authorities.

14. A method for monitoring suspicious vehicular activity comprising:

identifying a set of locations for monitoring;

assembling a list of approved vehicles for each location;

receiving one set of image data of a plurality of vehicles at each location;

extracting identifying feature data from the image data for each of the plurality of vehicles;

determining whether the identifying feature data is associated with an approved vehicle for the location;

transmitting the identifying feature data and location data to a tracking system if the identifying feature data is not associated with an approved vehicle for the location;

determining whether the identifying feature data matches stored identifying feature data;

generating an alert if the identifying feature data matches stored identifying feature data; and

storing the identifying feature data in a watch list.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein extracting the identifying feature data from the image data for each of the plurality of vehicles comprises extracting facial image data.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein extracting the identifying feature data from the image data for each of the plurality of vehicles comprises extracting license tag data.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein determining whether the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data comprises determining whether the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data in the watch list.

18. The method of claim 14 wherein generating the alert if the identifying feature data matches the stored identifying feature data comprises:

activating a plurality of monitoring stations in a vicinity of the location of the vehicle associated with the identifying feature data; and

determining whether the identifying feature data has been detected at one of the monitoring stations.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

determining a jurisdiction system associated with the monitoring station where the identifying feature data has been detected; and

generating notification data for the associated jurisdiction system.

20. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

determining whether the identifying feature data has been detected at one or more of the monitoring stations; and

determining an estimated direction of travel based on one or more of a location from where the set of image data associated with the identifying feature was received and a location of each of the one or more monitoring stations where the identifying feature data has been detected.