GB1392706A - Ticket systems - Google Patents

Abstract

1392706 Ticket systems NATIONAL RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT CORP 9 Oct 1972 [8 July 1971] 32052/71 Heading G4T In a ticket system, e.g. a public transport system or, as described, a car-parking system, a user of the system purchases a magazine 10 containing a coil of strip ticket material proportional in length to the purchase price, when beginning his use of the system the user plugs his magazine into a first apparatus, Fig. 3 (not shown), which marks the strip at a position spaced from its free end by a distance representative of the beginning of such user, and on finishing his use of the system the use plugs his magazine into a second apparatus, Fig. 4, which senses the marks representative of the beginning of the use and severs from the strip a length representative of such use. The first apparatus (Fig. 3), includes a latch 22 (as in Fig. 4), for holding the plugged in magazine, rolls 19 for withdrawing the strip from the magazine, rolls 24 for folding longitudinally folding the strip into V-section and a stop 25, which halts the withdrawal of the strip when abutted by the leading end thereof. A notching device (2) whose position relative to the stop is representative of time, then severs from one side of the V-section a terminal portion whose length is representative of the time. The strip is then fed back into the magazine, which is then freed by the latch. The second apparatus, Fig. 4, differs from the first in that the notching device (27) is replaced by a cutting device 37, whose position is also representative of time but whose distance increment for one hour is larger than that of the notching device, and in that there is provided a device 35 for sensing the length of the notch and for moving device 37 towards stop 25 through a corresponding number of increments, so that the length of strip cut-off is representative of the time interval between use of the first and second apparatuses. The strip may be of plastics material having a thin longitudinally central portion to assist folding. The notching device may leave a particular shape on the free end of the side of the strip, from which the terminal portion is severed and sensor 35 may activate an alarm if this shape is not present. The notching device may sever from the strip two portions, the lengths of which represent respectively tens and units of time or distance units. The strip may be magnetically marked (rather than notched) in the first apparatus.