METHOD FOR CONTINUOUS DETECTION OF A PERSONS PRESENCE ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

• US 20150090786A1
• Filed: 08/05/2014
• Published: 04/02/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SKIDATA AG (Thales SA), EM Microelectronic - Marin SA (The Swatch Group AG)
• Original Assignee: Charles Egli, Fabien Maupas, Jean-Claude Fournier, Reinhard Surkau
• Inventors: SURKAU, Reinhard, EGLI, Charles, FER, Francois, PIRET, Eric, FOURNIER, Jean-Claude, MAUPAS, Fabien, PREVOST, Oliver
• Granted Patent: US 9,251,391 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/384
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10425 the interrogation device being arranged for interrogation of record carriers passing by the interrogation device
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 1/10 together with the recording, indicating or registering of other data, e.g. of signs of identity
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/28 the pass enabling tracking or indicating presence

Abstract

A method for continuous determination of a person'"'"'s presence in a public transport conveyance is proposed, where a customer medium comprising an RF transceiver is assigned to the person, where at least one reading device per passenger compartment or car is provided for data communication with the customer media in the conveyance, which is connected to a computer serving as an on-board unit for the purpose of data communications, where these are also connected to each other in the case that several reading devices are provided, where an on-board unit serving as the main on-board unit is assigned to a passenger compartment or car if several passenger compartments or cars are present, and the other passenger compartments or cars are assigned to on-board units serving as secondary on-board units, which are connected to the main on-board unit for the purpose of data communication, where the customer medium is in a “sleep” mode upon entering the transport in order to keep energy consumption as low as possible.

Claims

1. Method for continuous determination of the presence of a person in a public transport conveyance, whereby a customer medium comprising an RF transceiver is assigned to the person, where at least one reading device per passenger compartment or car is provided for data communication with the customer media in the conveyance, which is connected to a computer serving as an on-board unit for the purpose of data communications, whereby these are also connected to each other in the case that several reading devices are provided, where an on-board unit serving as the main on-board unit is assigned to a passenger compartment or car if several passenger compartments or cars are present, and the other passenger compartments or cars are assigned to on-board units serving as secondary on-board units, which are connected to the main on-board unit for the purpose of data communication, whereby the customer medium is in a “

sleep”

mode upon entering the conveyance in order to keep energy consumption as low as possible, comprising the following steps;

a) Sending a “

wake-up”

signal via the on-board unit of the passenger compartment at regular intervals, which is sequentially emitted by all reading devices, which are connected to the on-board unit;

b) Receiving the “

wake-tip signal”

from customer medium and activating the customer medium if a “

wake-up”

-signal is recognised as valid;

the customer medium then leaves the sleep mode and goes into an active mode;

c) Sending data for the calculation of a session ID from the customer medium which is sent from at least one reading device and transmitted to the on-board unit in the passenger compartment via the bias system, via which at least one reading device is connected to the on-board unit, where a time stamp is transmitted to the customer medium by at least one reading device;

d) When a session ID exists, sending a media information from the customer medium;

e) Receiving the media information via at least one reading device and completing the received information with the reading device ID and forwarding this information to the on-board unit;

f) Processing the media information in the on-board unit and sending an acknowledgement containing a new time stamp;

g) Receiving the acknowledgement from the customer medians and transition of customer media into an idle mode;

h) Transition of the customer medium into the active mode after a predetermined time interval until the next contact and transmitting the media information to the on-board unit via at least one reading device;

i) Repeating the steps e) through g) until media information is not received by any reading device, whereby the person who is assigned to the customer medium is detected as having left the transport, and the customer medium enters the sleep mode and if the customer medium has entered the sleep mode, it can again be detected and registered only with a renewed wake-up signal;

j) Creating a series of datasets, including at least the earliest timestamp of the customer medium, the identity of the customer medium, the ID number of the reading device via which the signal from the customer medium is received, where the series of datasets begin with the first reception of the media information and end with the last reception of media information, whereby it is continued after a new detection and registration and where a log of the locations of a customer medium in the vicinity of certain reading devices as a function of time is created on the basis of the datasets.

2. Method according to claim 1, wherein, if the customer medium does not receive any acknowledgement of the on-board unit within a predetermined time period, the media information is sent again, where the customer medium enters the “

sleep”

mode if the customer medium does not receive any acknowledgement of sending media information from the on-board unit after a predetermined number of attempts after a respective predetermined period of time.

3. Method according to claim 1, wherein in the event that the customer medium enters the “

sleep”

mode, the customer medium can only be detected with a new wake-up signal, whereby a wake-up signal can be processed only in the “

sleep”

-mode.

4. Method according to claim 1, wherein the time interval of the period is dynamically adapted until the next contact.

5. Method according to claim 1, wherein it is assumed that a customer medium in a time interval of the duration until the next contact is to be considered as stationary and that for each time interval, a most probable location of a customer medium is determined in relation to the reading devices, which have received the signals from the customer medium in the respective time interval, so that a trail of the most probable movement of a customer medium in a vehicle is determined over a series of time intervals, where the most probable location of a customer medium is determined by the average location information of several time intervals, such that it can foe determined from the consideration of the most probable locations, whether the customer medium is more inside or outside the vehicle.

6. Method according to claim 1, wherein in the event the conveyance comprises several passenger compartments or cars, each on-board unit generates its own datasets, where the individual datasets of the on-board units per customer media and on-board unit are transmitted to the main on-board unit, where they are merged into a single dataset per customer medium.

7. Method according to claim 1, wherein the local location information relating to a customer medium are connected with the global location information of the conveyance as a function of time, so that an overall route for the customer medium is determined, whereby it can be assumed, that if a large number of locations along the route indicate a high probability that the customer medium stayed in the conveyance that a regular passenger ride in this conveyance occurred.

8. Method according to claim 7, wherein the local location information relating to a customer is linked with the global location information of the conveyance over time intervals of equal duration.

9. Method according to claim 7, wherein the location coordinates of the conveyance are taken as a function of time and are allocated time intervals for the detection of the global location data of the transport along a route, whereby the length of time intervals is determined by the type of trip, type of conveyance and/or the traffic scenario.

10. Method according to claim 7, wherein for each trip of the conveyance, location information is stored which are assigned to time intervals segmented along distances, where the closing of the doors of a conveyance is the starting signal for a trip and where the collection of global location information for a trip ends upon arriving at a station, which can be recognised by the opening at least one door of the conveyance when it comes to a standstill.

11. Method according to claim 7, wherein the location information is obtained via GPS, where information from wireless stations in railway stations or depots or stations is used for the case that no GPS signals are available, and where a trip is interpolated between the respective GPS locations in the case that a longer time has elapsed between two GPS signals.

12. A method according to claim 11, wherein location information is alternatively determined based on GSM networks or inertial navigation equipment or in addition to the wireless information.

13. Method according to claim 1, wherein the customer medium features its own power supply.

14. Method according to claim 1, wherein the customer medium is designed in such a manner that it is charged with energy via an HF-pulse, and then can operate autonomously for a predetermined time.

15. Method according to claim 14, wherein the “

wake-up signal,”

is included in the HF-pulse.

16. Method according to claim 14, wherein at regular predetermined time intervals an RF signal is emitted by at least one reading device in order to energise the customer media with energy within reach.

17. Method according to claim 1, wherein, after transmission of the data to calculate a session ID by the customer medium, which are received by at least one reading device and are sent to the on-board unit in the passenger compartment via the bus system, via which the at least one reading device is connected with the on-board unit;

in the next step, a mutual authentication between the on-board unit and the customer medium is carried out, so that this customer medium in the on-board unit is marked as known and authenticated, whereby the carried out authentication is not deleted in case of a transition from the active mode to the idle mode, where the authentication is deleted in case of a transition to the sleep mode, whereby the customer medium can be detected and registered only with a renewed wake-up signal subsequent renewed mutual authentication if it has entered sleep mode.

18. A method according to claim 17, wherein, after completion of the mutual authentication, the communication between the on-board unit and the customer medium occurs as encrypted and optionally marked, where the encryption and signature is different for each customer medians and where the re-registration features a new, different encryption and possible marking after a re-authentication.

19. Method according to claim 1 wherein, after the reception of the media information via at least one reading device, this in addition to the signal strength, with which the signal has been received by the reading device and supplemented with the duration, of the signal in the event of communication in a high GHz range before it is forwarded to the on-board unit, where this information is included in the generated datasets.

20. Method according to claim 1, wherein, after processing the media information in the on-board unit, the acknowledgement containing a new time stamp includes the duration until the next contact by the customer medium in addition.