JP2004302588A - Charge collecting system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that a vehicle whose vehicle type discrimination result discriminated based on the registered information of an onboard unit mounted on a vehicle is different from optically read number plate information is forced to stop by a start control bar. <P>SOLUTION: Registered information acquired by communication between an antenna 4 set on a tollgate lane and an onboard unit 2 mounted on a vehicle and optically read number plate information are stored in a memory 6-1 of a server 6, and when the collation/comparison result is not satisfactory, they are transmitted to a central unit 10, and stored in a conversion table 10-1. A deciding part 10-2 compares the number of times of recording for the same vehicle with a specific value N, and when the number of times of recording is not less than N, decides that the received registered information belongs to the optically read vehicle, and transmits passage permission to a server 6. The server 6 transmits a control signal to a switch based on the signal so that a start control bar can be lifted up to let a vehicle 1 pass. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a toll collection system for collecting tolls from vehicles, and more particularly to a toll collection system for preventing fraudulent payment of tolls.
[0002]
[Prior art]
At present, the automatic toll collection system (ECT), which is being promoted to be installed on toll roads, has already been featured in many newspapers and magazines, and it is well known that various proposals have been made regarding the system configuration. By the way.
[0003]
As an example of such a system, communication is performed between the on-board unit mounted on the vehicle and the antenna installed at the tollgate, and the registered license plate information of the on-board unit is received. The license plate of the approaching vehicle is read by the provided vehicle identification device. The received license plate information is compared with the read license plate information.If they match, the start control rod is raised to allow the vehicle to pass, and if different, the vehicle is stopped without raising the start control rod and the vehicle is allowed to pass normally. Fees can be collected (for example, see Patent Document 1).
[0004]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-4-24297 (page 5, FIG. 2)
[0005]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
Since the conventional toll collection system is configured as described above, a vehicle having a different vehicle type determination result determined based on the registered vehicle-mounted device information and the license plate reading result is not, for example, intentionally replaced. There has been a problem that a vehicle having an in-vehicle unit setup failure is also stopped by the start control rod each time.
[0006]
The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and the vehicle-mounted device information conversion of the vehicle-mounted device of the same vehicle can be performed even for a vehicle that is originally stopped several times due to inconsistent vehicle type determination results. It is an object of the present invention to obtain a toll collection system capable of collecting regular tolls without stopping at a table.
[0007]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The toll collection system according to the present invention, which is mounted on a vehicle, associates the information received by communication with the vehicle-mounted device that has registered the information of the vehicle with information obtained by optically reading the license plate information of the vehicle. A first storage means for temporarily storing the information, a second storage means for accumulating and storing the information when the result of comparison and collation of the temporarily stored information is inconsistent, and a second storage means for storing the information in the second storage means. Permission means for generating billing information for vehicles whose cumulative recording has exceeded a predetermined number of times and for permitting passage is provided.
[0008]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described.
Embodiment 1 FIG.
FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram illustrating a toll collection system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. In the figure, an on-vehicle device 2 is mounted on a vehicle 1 that has entered an approach lane A of a tollgate. At the tollgate, an antenna 4 for communicating with the on-vehicle device 2 is arranged at a position above the approach lane by the strut 3. The vehicle 1 that has entered in the direction of the arrow has its license plate information optically read by the vehicle identification device 5 provided on the side road of the approach lane. The read result is temporarily stored in the memory 6-1 (first storage unit) of the server 6 and compared and compared. Based on the result, an opening / closing instruction is sent to the switch 7 via the connection line 6a to open / close the start control rod 8. Further, the server 6 transmits the billing information to the billing center 9 via the communication line 6b based on the collation result. The server 6 transmits the information to the central device 10 connected via the communication line 6c based on the result of the comparison, and stores the information in the on-vehicle device information conversion table 10-1 (second storage unit). In addition, the central device 10 includes a determination unit 10-2 (traffic permitting unit) that compares and determines the number of times recorded in the on-vehicle device conversion table 10-1 with a specified value.
[0009]
Next, the operation will be described with reference to FIG. 1 together with the operation flow of FIG. A vehicle number, information necessary for billing, and the like are registered in the vehicle-mounted device 2 mounted on the vehicle 1. Communication is performed between the vehicle-mounted device 2 of the vehicle 1 that has entered the approach lane A of the tollgate and the antenna 4 provided at the tollgate, and the vehicle-mounted device 2 transmits information registered in the vehicle-mounted device 2. I do. This information is received by the antenna 4 and sent to the server 6 via the connection line 4a (step ST1). The server 6 stores this information in a memory 6-1 (first storage unit) that temporarily stores the information.
When the vehicle 1 further enters in the direction of the arrow and passes through the antenna 4, the information on the license plate is optically read by the vehicle identification device 5. The vehicle identification device 5 photographs the vehicle 1 and encodes a license plate from the image by image processing to determine the number and the vehicle type (step ST2). The read license plate information is sent to the server 6 via the connection line 5a, and is stored in the memory 6-1 in association with the vehicle-mounted device information stored earlier. The server 6 compares and compares the two pieces of information stored in association with each other, that is, the vehicle-mounted device information obtained by communication and the license plate information read by the vehicle identification device 5 (step ST3). If so, a passage permission signal is sent to the switch 7 via the connection line 6a, and charging information is created based on the on-vehicle device information and transmitted to the charging center 9 via the communication line 6b (step ST4). The charging center 9 charges the vehicle 1 based on the transmitted charging information.
[0010]
On the other hand, the switch 7 raises the start control rod and passes the vehicle 1 based on the permission signal. When the vehicle 1 passes, the start control rod 8 is lowered, and the contents of the memory 6-1 are reset to prepare for storing information of the next vehicle. Next, when the two do not match, the passage permission signal is not issued, so that the switch 7 does not operate the start control rod 8. Therefore, the driver of the vehicle 1 manually receives a toll ticket at the tollgate at the entrance of the toll road or the highway, and performs toll settlement if the tollgate is the tollgate at the exit or one tollgate. If the two do not match, the server 6 sends the temporarily stored two pieces of information to the central device 10 via the communication line 6c.
The central device 10 is provided with a conversion table 10-1 (second storage means) for on-vehicle device information, and the information sent from the server 6 is stored in association with the information. The conversion table 10-1 is stored cumulatively. In other words, it is stored each time the occurrence of a mismatch for the same vehicle occurs continuously or discontinuously. Here, “continuous” means that each time the vehicle 1 passes through the tollgate, there is a mismatch, and “discontinuous” does not necessarily mean that each time the vehicle 1 passes through the tollgate. It means that it has occurred.
[0011]
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the conversion table 10-1 of the on-vehicle information. The on-vehicle device-specific information including the license plate information and the vehicle code, the license plate information read by the vehicle identification device 5, and the discriminating vehicle type information are stored. ing. The figure shows that the inconsistency data of five vehicles classified by numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 is recorded. It can be seen that for the vehicles of Nos. 1 and 5, four discrepancies have already occurred in the tollgate verification. The vehicles of Nos. 2 and 3 occur three times, and the vehicle of No. 4 occurs once. If the number of mismatches is recorded N times or more, the recorded on-vehicle device information is regarded as the vehicle of the license plate information read by the vehicle identification device 5, and the vehicle is allowed to pass. .
[0012]
Here, looking at the conversion table 10-1 in FIG. 3, the vehicles of No. 1 and No. 5 have already been recorded four times inconsistently. When N = 5, it is assumed that the vehicle with the number 1 is the vehicle 1 in FIG. 1 and has just entered the tollgate. As described above, the in-vehicle device information received by the antenna 4 and the license plate information read by the vehicle identification device 5 are stored in the memory 6-1 in a mismatched state, and are determined by the server 6 to be inconsistent with the collation result. (Step ST5). The fifth time is recorded in the in-vehicle information conversion table 10-1. The recording number determination unit 10-2 compares the recording number with the specified value N (step ST6). Since N = 5, the vehicle-mounted device information is determined to be that of the vehicle read by the vehicle identification device 5 (step ST7), and the central management device 10 determines that the vehicle-mounted device information of the vehicle 1 received by the antenna 4 is correct. Billing information is generated together with the information (pass permission signal) indicating that the billing information is valid and transmitted to the server 6. Upon receiving this information, the server 6 transmits the billing information to the billing center 9 and sends a control signal for permitting passage to the switch 7 via the connection line 6a (step ST9). The switch 7 raises the start control rod 8 based on this signal, and passes the vehicle 1 (step ST10).
[0013]
As described above, the discrepancy of the on-vehicle device information is recorded in the conversion table 10-1, and when the number of discrepancies recorded is equal to or more than the specified number, it is determined that the erroneous vehicle information is that of the vehicle information read by the vehicle identification device. The central device 10 transmits an instruction to the server 6 to pass the traffic. The server 6 outputs a control signal to the switch 7 based on the instruction, raises the start control rod 8, and passes the vehicle 1 (step ST10).
[0014]
As described above, according to the first embodiment, even if there is a discrepancy between the information registered in the vehicle-mounted device and the optically read license plate information, the traffic is permitted when the specified number of times is reached. As well as being able to collect fees.
[0015]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, means for comparing and collating information on the vehicle-mounted device mounted on the vehicle with license plate information of the vehicle optically read and cumulatively storing mismatched information is provided. If the information is recorded more than the number of times, the in-vehicle device information is determined to be erroneous, the billing process is performed and the traffic permission is output, so that there is an effect that the toll can be collected correctly.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a toll collection system of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation flow of the toll collection system of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a conversion table of on-vehicle information according to the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
1 vehicle, 2 vehicle-mounted device, 3 poles, 4 antennas, 5 vehicle identification device, 6 server, 7 switch, 8 start control rod, 9 charging center, 10 central device.

Claims (1)

A first storage which is mounted on the vehicle and temporarily stores the information received by communication with the vehicle-mounted device in which the information of the vehicle is registered and the information obtained by optically reading the license plate information of the vehicle in association with each other; Means, a second storage means for cumulatively storing the information when the result of comparison and collation of the temporarily stored information is inconsistent, and a vehicle for which the cumulative recording in the second storage means has exceeded a predetermined number of times. And a permission means for generating billing information and granting permission for traffic.

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