Parking facility resource management

• US 9,275,392 B2
• Filed: 07/02/2009
• Issued: 03/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC (Allied Inventors Management, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC (Allied Inventors Management, LLC)
• Inventors: Potkonjak, Miodrag
• Primary Examiner(s): Chen, George
• Application Number:
  US12/496,992
• Publication Number:
  US 20110004507A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,434 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1.1, 705/400, 705/13, 705/348, 705/412
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0284 Time or distance, e.g. usage of parking meters or taximeters
• 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 1/14 indicating individual free spaces in parking areas

Abstract

Technologies are generally described for an information system configured to manage parking facility resources. The system can create and apply models and profiles regarding customers, parking space usage, access patterns, events, traffic, and other factors related to the parking facility. Parking facility operators may use the models to seek optimized revenues or profits. Increased revenue for parking facility operators may be supported by allocating resources to longer staying and better paying customers. New opportunities such as reselling, auctions, or options may further improve revenue generation for parking facilities. Customers may interface with the information system for availability queries, interactive reservation, and various other functions that may improve convenience, security, privacy, and service quality for the customers as well as for neighboring businesses and venues. Improved efficiency in parking facility resource consumption may reduce street traffic congestion. Parking security may be improved by adaptive lighting and camera operation.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon to manage a parking facility, the instructions comprising:

collecting usage information related to one or more of a traffic pattern, a day of a week, a time of a day, and a usage of parking spaces for the parking facility;

collecting resource information related to electrical resources within the parking facility;

building usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information and based on information collected from a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit;

building resource models for the parking facility based on the collected resource information and based on the information collected from GPS unit, wherein the information collected from the GPS unit determines user access demand as a function of one or more of the day of the week, the time of the day, and the traffic pattern;

managing allocation of the parking spaces based on the usage models;

reducing energy expense by a management operation of the electrical resources based on the resource models and the usage models, wherein the management operation of the electrical resources includes a dimming action to dim the parking spaces determined to have little or no activity based on the usage models and an illumination action to increase illumination of the parking spaces reserved by customers based on the usage models to direct the customers to the illuminated parking spaces; and

establishing prices for the parking spaces based on the usage models.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise:

providing an interface to parking customers.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein the interface to parking customers further comprises an interface for mobile telephones.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise:

providing an interface to neighboring businesses; and

receiving upcoming event information from the neighboring businesses via the interface,

wherein building the usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information includes a build action to build the usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information and the upcoming event information.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the traffic information comprises foot traffic information.

6. A parking facility management system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to;

collect usage information related to one or more of a traffic pattern, a day of a week, a time of a day, and a usage of parking spaces for the parking facility;

collect resource information related to electrical resources within the parking facility;

collect user information related to customers of the parking facility;

identify usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information and based on information collected from a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit;

identify resource models to reduce energy expense of the parking facility based on the collected resource information and based on the information collected from the GPS unit, wherein the information collected from the GPS unit determines user access demand as a function of one or more of the day of the week, the time of the day, and the traffic pattern;

identify user profiles for the customers based on the collected user information;

manage allocation of the parking spaces based on the usage models and the user profiles;

reduce energy expense by a management operation of the electrical resources to reduce energy expense based on the resource models and the usage models, wherein the management operation of the electrical resources includes a dimming action to dim the parking spaces determined to have little or no activity based on the usage models and an illumination action to illuminate of the parking spaces that are reserved by customers based on the usage models to direct the customers to the illuminated parking spaces; and

establish prices for the parking spaces based on the usage models.

7. The parking facility management system of claim 6, wherein the processor is further configured to provide an interface to parking customers.

8. The parking facility management system of claim 7, wherein the interface to parking customers includes an interface for mobile telephones.

9. The parking facility management system of claim 6, wherein the processor is further configured to cause increased security to be provided upon request from one of the customers of the parking facility.

10. The parking facility management system of claim 9, wherein to cause increased security to be provided upon request from one of the customers of the parking facility, the processor is further configured to:

initiate additional camera monitoring of parking spaces associated with the one of the customers in response to the request; and

initiate microphone monitoring of the parking spaces associated with the one of the customers in response to the request.

11. The parking facility management system of claim 6, wherein the processor is further configured to:

provide an interlace to an event venue that is independent of the parking facility; and

receive upcoming event information from the event venue via the interface, the upcoming event information specifies a time when an event is held at the event venue,

wherein to identity the usage models for the parking facility based upon the collected usage information, the processor is further configured to identify the usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information and the upcoming event information, and wherein the usage models indicate higher demand of the parking facility during the time when the event is held at the event venue.

12. The parking facility management system of claim 6, wherein the processor is further configured to collect traffic information.

13. The parking facility management system of claim 6, wherein the processor is further configured to create user profiles for inclusion into the usage models.

14. A method executed by a user input device to manage a parking facility, the method comprising:

collecting usage information related to one or more of a traffic pattern, a day of a week, a time of a day, and a usage of parking spaces for the parking facility;

collecting resource information related to electrical resources within the parking facility, wherein the electrical resources include lighting resources and elevators within the parking facility;

identifying usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information and based on information collected from a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit;

identifying resource models for the parking facility based on the collected resource information and based on the information collected from the GPS unit, wherein the information collected from the GPS unit determines user access demand as a function of one or more of the day of the week, the time of the day, and the traffic pattern;

reducing energy expense by managing operation of the electrical resources based on the resource models and the usage models, wherein managing operation of the electrical resources includes a dimming action to dim the parking spaces having little or no activity according to the usage models and an illumination action to illuminate the parking spaces that are reserved by customers according to the usage models for directing the customers to the illuminated parking spaces; and

establishing prices for the parking spaces based on the usage models and the resource models.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

managing allocation of the parking spaces within the parking facility based on the resource models.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

providing an interface to parking customers.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

providing an interlace to neighboring businesses that are neighboring the parking facility and independent from the parking facility; and

receiving upcoming event information from the neighboring businesses via the interface, wherein the upcoming event information specifies a time when events are held by the neighboring businesses,

wherein identifying the usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information includes an identification action to identify the usage models for the parking facility based on the collected usage information and the upcoming event information, and wherein the usage models indicate higher demand of the parking facility during the time when the events are held by the neighboring businesses.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

collecting traffic information for inclusion into the resource models.

19. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

creating user profiles for inclusion into the resource models.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein reducing energy expense by managing operation of the electrical resources based on the resource models and the usage models includes:

enabling and disabling operation of the elevators to reduce energy utilization based on the usage models.