METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AVOIDANCE OF PARKING VIOLATIONS

• US 20160155332A1
• Filed: 08/21/2015
• Published: 06/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Operr Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Kevin Sunlin Wang
• Inventors: Wang, Kevin Sunlin
• Granted Patent: US 9,558,665 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3685 the POI's being parking facilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/01 Detecting movement of traffic to be counted or controlled G08G1/07 - G08G1/14 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/015 with provision for distinguishing between two or more types of vehicles, e.g. between motor-cars and cycles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/017 identifying vehicles G08G1/015, G08G1/054 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/052 with provision for determining speed or overspeed speed measuring in general G01P
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096716 where the received information does not generate an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096741 where the source of the transmitted information selects which information to transmit to each vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096775 where the origin of the information is a central station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/148 Management of a network of parking areas

Abstract

Disclosed is a system and method for alerting users on how to avoid receiving parking violation citations. A location determining apparatus identifies a location of a user. A database stores historical parking violation citations, real-time crowdsourced parking violation citations, and other parking violation related information with a verification algorithm and an inference algorithm. Parking intent is determined by a user'"'"'s location and speed and once the determination is made, the database is polled to identify whether potential parking violations exist, where an alert will be sent. A forum functionality allows information exchange and idea sharing about parking violation citations and avoidance thereof. Crowdsourced parking violation related data is gathered using an incentive method with rewards and a parking ticket payment module collects parking violation-related information for the database. Historical weather data is used to predict the impact on current parking situations.

Claims

1. A system for alerting a user on how to avoid receiving parking violation citations, comprising:

an in-vehicle navigation system;

one or more mobile device units;

a location determining apparatus to identify a current location of a user;

a clock mechanism to determine a present time and date;

a unified database storing parking rules, violation codes, abbreviations used by law enforcement, historical records of issued parking violation citations and real-time crowdsourced records of issued parking violation citations, each of the issued parking violation citations including geolocations, one or more reasons, time and date information pertaining to where and when the issued parking violation citations were issued;

a processing apparatus to cross correlate the identified present time and the identified current location of the user with the time and date information and geolocation information of each of the issued parking violation citations to predict a likelihood of the user receiving a parking violation citation at the identified current location and the determined time and date; and

a display apparatus associated with a mobile device of the one or more mobile device units or the in-vehicle navigation system to present an alert pertaining to the predicted likelihood of the user receiving a parking violation citation, and to display information pertaining to the issued parking violation citations cross correlated to the identified current location and the determined time and date.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the in-vehicle navigation system includes one or more sensors, one or more cameras, one or more wireless input devices, one or more accelerometers, one or more GPS devices, or one or more speech recognition modules.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein parking intent of the user is identified by assessing current speed and location using the accelerometer and the GPS included in the in-vehicle navigation system or a mobile communications device of the user.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein parking citation data from the unified database is processed to identify potential parking violation citations;

and

alerts are presented to the user about the potential parking violation citations at the user'"'"'s determined current location and time and date based on a determination as to whether a vehicle of the user is a commercial or non-commercial vehicle.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a forum module for allowing a plurality of users of the one or more mobile device units to exchange information and share ideas about parking violation citations and avoidance thereof, wherein the forum module is configured to;

organize content according to specific locations of parking violation citations or includes a general discussion area for allowing users to share and exchange information and ideas about parking violation citations and avoidance thereof;

organize content to provide plain explanations of confusing parking signs and obtain suggestions/redesigns of the confusing parking signs to clarify their meanings, wherein suggestions/redesigns with top ratings appear on the top of a list;

gather questions, answers and comments about parking violations for the specific locations;

organize content to clarify reasons why parking violation citations were received;

provide recommendations and share ideas, photos, videos, and provide comments on how to avoid receiving parking violation citations; and

provide a street view function with photos or videos for locations with patterns of parking violations when a number of the parking violation citations reaches a predetermined threshold number.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising:

a parking tickets dispute module connected to the forum module, the unified database, and the location determining apparatus to allow the user to assess parking tickets dispute success probability by seeking crowdsourced assistance or third party assistance.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the unified database includes:

records of issued parking violation citations from different issuing agencies sorted into categories for commercial vehicles and non-commercial vehicles;

parking rules for commercial and non-commercial vehicles; and

parking enforcement abbreviations used for commercial and non-commercial vehicles.

8. The system of claim 5 further comprising a parking sign database, associated with the forum module, for storing the following information:

parking sign locations, images and their applicable rules;

wherein the system reports of the existence of temporary parking notices which apply to certain locations, and

generates automatic notifications about meanings of parking signs sent to the one or more mobile devices or the in-vehicle navigation system when the user has indicated to the system that the user is parked in the certain location, where the user connects to the forum module to clarify the meanings of the signs.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the database for storing historical records of issued parking violation citations and real-time crowdsourced records of issued parking violation citations is populated by:

receiving the historical records from an official source;

receiving the real-time crowdsourced records from a plurality of additional users;

verifying accuracy of the received historical and real-time records; and

removing duplicate parking violation citations from the received historical and real-time records.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the data in the unified database is divided into different categories depending on non-commercial and commercial vehicles;

commercial and non-commercial vehicles are further divided into different categories by the type of vehicle plate or type of vehicle, and

an alert is issued for reasons of violations applicable to a same type of vehicle plate or a same type of vehicle when the user is approaching a intended destination location associated with one or more issued violation citations and one or more parking rules.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a weather determining module for predicting the impact to the parking location, wherein the weather-determining module collects weather data and informs the user about dangerous conditions or potential weather-related violations that affect a user'"'"'s current parking situation;

the system queries similar weather conditions indicated by historical violation data as being related to forecasted weather conditions, and

notifications on potential parking violations are sent to the user based on similar historical weather situations.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a ticket payment module for accessing parking violation information and allowing the user to pay fines incurred as a result of a issued parking violation citations, wherein the ticket payment module accesses third-party APIs or websites to accept and process payments and wherein the ticket payment module is configured to inform the user about unpaid parking violation citations, by;

obtaining permission from the user to access user-identifying information to search for unpaid parking violation citations;

displaying a summary of all active parking violation citations issued by law enforcement to the user;

notifying the user about unpaid parking violation citations; and

supplementing the unified database with parking violation citation data acquired from the user'"'"'s unpaid parking violation citations.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the display apparatus associated with a mobile device unit of the one or more mobile device units is configured to display a comparison of parking rules for different countries, states, cities, or municipalities and the comparison is made based on the identified current location of the user and a location obtained from the user'"'"'s driver license stored in a user profile;

wherein information obtained from the user'"'"'s driver license indicates a country, state and city where the user'"'"'s driver license was issued; and

the stored parking rules are summarized, compared and analyzed to alert the user of differences between parking rules of the country, state, and city where the user'"'"'s driver license was issued and the determined location of the user.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the differences between the parking rules are displayed on the one or more mobile device units.

16. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a parking violations database configured to store the historical records of issued parking violation citations and real-time crowd-sourced records of issued parking violation citations data;

a processor configured to execute program codes; and

a memory connected to the processor and configured to store program codes, when executed by the microprocessor, the program code providing instructions for performing the steps of;

receiving a geocoded location;

receiving data from the parking violations database;

receiving vehicle data from the user;

analyzing and verifying the received vehicle data; and

displaying relevant data to the user.

15. A computer system comprising:

a microprocessor; and

a non-transitory, tangible, program storage medium, readable by the computer system, embodying a program of instructions executable by the microprocessor to perform method steps for alerting a user on how to avoid receiving a parking violation citation, the method steps comprising;

receiving a geocoded location of a user;

receiving data pertaining to historical parking violation citations from a unified database;

receiving vehicle data from the user including a type of vehicle and type of vehicle plate;

analyzing and verifying the received geocoded location, the data from the unified database, the vehicle data received from the user and identifying highly relevant data therefrom; and

displaying the highly relevant data to alert the user as to a probability of receiving a parking violation citation at the location of the user.

17. A method for alerting a user on how to avoid receiving parking violation citations, comprising:

receiving a geocoded location of a user;

receiving data pertaining to historical parking violation citations from a unified database;

receiving vehicle data from the user;

analyzing and verifying the received geocoded location, data from the unified database, vehicle data from the user to identify relevant data therefrom;

comparing different parking rules between the received geocoded location of the user and a location obtained from the user'"'"'s driver license information stored in a user profile;

comparing similar weather conditions indicated by the data pertaining to the historical parking violation data as being related to forecasted weather conditions to obtain potential weather-related violation information; and

displaying the relevant data to alert the user.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the violation data received from the user includes:

a type of vehicle;

a type of vehicle plate;

parking rules, regulations, laws and codes for the type of vehicle and type of vehicle plate; and

fines for violating the rules, regulations and laws.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the unified database comprises:

historical and real-time crowdsourced records of issued parking violation citations, parking rules, violation codes, and abbreviations used by parking enforcement personnel, as well as parking meters location and cost information, and tow away zone information;

an analysis algorithm to analyze and cluster the data from the unified database;

a verification algorithm to verify accuracy of the data of the unified database and other information and to remove duplicated data from the data of the unified database; and

an alert algorithm to generate an alert about a potential parking violation and a recommendation on how to avoid the potential parking violation citation.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the unified database comprises a database of historical and real-time crowdsourced parking violation citations issued to commercial vehicles, parking rules, abbreviations, violation codes, and tow away zones for commercial vehicles, wherein said parking violation citation data comprises:

historical parking violation citations data from a variety of government sources, private entities and individuals;

real-time crowdsourced parking violation citation data for commercial vehicles from a plurality of additional users; and

violation citation data sorted into different categories based on the type of vehicle or type of vehicle plate.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein the unified database comprises a database of parking violation citations issued to non-commercial vehicles, parking rules, violation codes and tow away zones for non-commercial vehicles, wherein said parking violation citation data includes information pertaining to parking violation citations issued to non-commercial vehicles,

wherein said parking violation citation data comprises:

historical parking violation citations data from a variety of government sources, private entities and individuals; and

real-time crowdsourced parking violation citation data for non-commercial vehicles from the plurality of additional users,

wherein violation citation data is sorted into different categories based on the type of vehicle or type of vehicle plate.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein the analysis algorithm to analyze and cluster the data from unified database performs the following steps:

receiving geolocation, date, time and violation codes, of each the issued parking violation citation for both commercial and non-commercial vehicles from the unified database;

receiving parking rules and abbreviations used by law enforcement personnel for both commercial and non-commercial vehicles from the unified database;

deciphering violation codes for both commercial and non-commercial vehicles from the unified database and correlating the deciphered violation codes to the parking rules and regulations from the unified database;

receiving tow away zone information for both commercial and non-commercial vehicles comprising private and public tow away zone locations from the unified database; and

clustering data based on reasons for issuing violations, the geocoded location, time, date, type of vehicle, and type of vehicle plate.

23. The method of claim 19, wherein a verification algorithm performs the steps of:

identifying a firsthand experience from one or more of the plurality of additional users who received a notification about potential parking violation citations by passing through the location identified to have historical or real-time issued parking violation citation data;

receiving the historical and real-time crowd sourced data from the unified database and verifying the accuracy of the data received therefrom;

removing duplicate parking violation citations from the received historical and real-time crowd sourced data; and

supplementing the data received from the unified database with data acquired through one or more sources that are different from the unified database.

24. The method of claim 19, further comprising an inference algorithm to identify:

violation code in connection with an issuing agency for specific locations;

specific locations where parking violation citations have been issued;

reasons for the issuance of the parking violation citations at the identified specific locations and at places where parking is illegal at any time;

time related restrictions when parking is illegal at the identified specific locations;

distance related restrictions where parking, standing or stopping is illegal during specific time frame; and

location specific restrictions where parking is illegal.

25. The method of claim 17, wherein displaying the relevant data to alert the user includes:

sending one or more notifications to the user about potential parking violation citations wherein the one or more notifications about the potential parking violation citations include time, date, violation reasons, historical violations summary and penalties;

sending one or more notifications to the user about unpaid or pending parking violation citations;

sending one or more notifications to the user about unpaid or pending parking citations reaching a threshold amount that subjects the user to other adverse consequences; and

obtaining consent of the user to share time, reasons, location, type of vehicle, type of vehicle plate, and issuing agency information for the received parking violation citations with a plurality of additional users and supplement the unified database accordingly.

26. The method of claim 17, wherein parking violation citation data is provided by photographs or scans of received parking violation citations;

and

prior to providing the photographs or scans of the received parking violation citations, sensitive personal information is redacted therefrom and optical character recognition is performed; and

the provided parking violation citation data are manually inputted into the unified database, by selecting from available parking citation classes, reasons, time and day and location of the violation or by interpreting vocal instructions.

27. The method of claim 17, wherein a forum is used to:

provide recommendations and share ideas, photos and videos and provide comments on how to avoid receiving parking violation citations by sharing and parking violation tickets;

gather questions, answers and comments about parking violation related issues at specific locations;

provide plain explanations of parking signs and suggest new designs of the confusing parking signs to clarify their meanings;

provide comments, questions, answers, clarifications and suggestions subject to ratings wherein the ratings are differentiated by the number of received ratings; and

wherein parking signs applicable to specific parking locations and their meanings are retrieved from the unified database and are automatically displayed on a mobile device of the user or on an in-vehicle navigation system when the user is in a corresponding geographic location where signs apply.

28. The method of claim 22, wherein the received tow away zone information includes:

a time frame when parking is illegal at specific location and a vehicle may be towed away;

specific location where parking is illegal and the vehicle may be towed away;

information about private and public tow away zones, along with relevant information about towing companies, as well as costs and penalties associated with towing away the vehicle.

29. The method of claim 26 wherein a monetary reward is credited when:

one or more parking violation citations, of the provided parking violation citation data, that are new for a specific location and are not available through the unified database are shared and uploaded;

the one or more parking violation citations that are new for the specific location are shared and uploaded with reasons for the parking violation citations and recommendations are provided on how to avoid the violation citations;

positive ratings are received for the provided recommendations from one or more other users who have been determined to have firsthand experience with the provided recommendation, wherein the firsthand experience is determined by a verification algorithm; and

the provided recommendations for how to avoid the violation citations receive a predetermined number of positive endorsements or ratings,

wherein upon displaying the relevant data to alert the user and receiving a recommendation on how to avoid a parking violation citation at the received geocoded location, recommendations can be rated either positively or negatively,

wherein the positive endorsements or ratings of the recommendation to avoid parking violation citations are provided by the one or more other users who have been determined to have firsthand experience;

wherein an amount of the monetary reward is equal to a total fine amount stated on a parking violation citation or other amount, and the monetary reward is provided when the predetermined number of positive endorsements or ratings is achieved, and

other rewards are provided when the predetermined number of positive endorsements or ratings is achieved.

30. The method of claim 17, wherein the comparing of different parking rules is based on the received geocoded location and a location obtained from the user'"'"'s driver license stored in the user profile, and the comparing includes:

obtaining the location from the user'"'"'s driver license where the user'"'"'s driver license was issued;

receiving stored parking rules for the user'"'"'s received geocoded location;

analyzing the parking rules of the location where the user'"'"'s driver license was issued and the parking rules of the received geocoded location of the user to determine differences therebetween; and

displaying a summary of the determined differences.