Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G07—CHECKING-DEVICES
  • G07B—TICKET-ISSUING APPARATUS; FARE-REGISTERING APPARATUS; FRANKING APPARATUS
  • G07B15/00—Arrangements or apparatus for collecting fares, tolls or entrance fees at one or more control points

Definitions

• the present invention relates to ticketing systems which can be operated simultaneously by several operators in a transparent manner for one user.
• ticketing system is meant a system in which there is a dual association 1 transaction-1 contract (this is the case for example of transport network systems) or a multiple association 1 contract - n transactions (i.e. that each time there is a transaction, there is reference to a general contract, that signed with an operator (for example a mobile operator or a Credit Card Grouping, for the payment aspects.
• the invention therefore applies to any transaction system which can be exploited by several operators.
• the invention applies in particular to radio telephony, banking networks, and transport networks.
• a user having contracted with a telephone operator will be able to carry out telephone transactions from the equipment of another operator or other operators or a telephone network operator.
• the networks are completely separate and a user can only use the network of the operator to which he is subscribed unless specific agreement between said operators.
• This solution is currently viable because because of the large number of subscribers operators can afford to have either overlapping or substantially continuous networks. It is however very certain that for sparsely populated areas, and therefore poorly served, it would certainly be desirable for customers to have access, in a transparent manner if possible, to the various networks, in order to ensure truly coverage. complete under economically acceptable conditions. This of course poses the problem of pricing and billing of calls passing through a network to which the subscriber is not a member.
• the billing system is essentially based on the processing of data concerning actual communications, data which is collected by the incumbent operator and then communicated to the new operators. We can see that the new operators are therefore totally linked to the incumbent operator and must trust it for the validity of the data received, which is not without drawbacks between direct competitors.
• the invention provides a multi-operator ticketing system, which includes first means specific to a first operator to acquire the content of a ticket issued by this operator and to authorize a service based on the information acquired, mainly characterized in that it further comprises second means, called “consulate", for receiving the information when it comes from a ticket issued by another operator and for transmitting with the first means a simple authorization to render said service according to the information thus known and treated in a specific way to the consulate.
• the service authorization is subject to the prior completion of a transaction.
• the methods of processing information by the first means and the consulate are hidden from each other.
• the consulate is physically included in the first means.
• the consulate is physically external to the first means.
• the system comprises a central station and a set of remote stations intended to know the content of the tickets and to carry out the transactions and connected to the central station by first transmission circuits.
• each remote station includes a consulate.
• the central station comprises second transmission circuits for transmitting to the central station of the other operator the data corresponding to the transactions carried out on behalf of this other operator.
• the central station comprises third transmission circuits for transmitting from the central station of the other operator to the consulate the information concerning the methods of processing by the consulate of the information carried on the ticket.
• the system is applied to a public transport system and the remote stations are validators of access to transport vehicles.
• the tickets are information carriers such as magnetic strip, plastic or cardboard tickets, or contact or contactless smart cards.
• the system is applied to a mobile telephone system and the remote stations are base stations of radio telephone networks, the information carried by the tickets being read by mobile telephones and transmitted to the base stations.
• the tickets are in the form of a mobile phone - associated smart card for mobile telephony (GSM or UMTS standards).
• GSM mobile phone - associated smart card for mobile telephony
• the system is applied to a banking system and the remote stations are dispensing terminals, the information carried by the tickets being read by the dispensing terminals.
• the tickets are in the form of credit cards, chip or magnetic strip.
• the system is applied to different finality systems.
• the system can be applied to transport and parking systems or to transport and retail loyalty systems.
• FIG. 1 represents the simplified block diagram of a system according to the invention
• FIG. 2 represents the block diagram of a system according to the invention applied to a mobile telephone network belonging to an operator distinct from the telephony operators
• FIG. 3 represents the block diagram of a system according to the invention applied to a banking network belonging to an operator distinct from banking operators (banks).
• the invention applies to all transaction systems which can be exploited by several operators as mentioned above insofar as a ticketing system is understood to mean a system in which there is a dual association 1 transaction-1 contract (case of transport) or then in the case of figures where one is in a multiple situation 1 contract - n transactions (that is to say that each time there is a transaction, there is reference to a contract in general, that passed with the mobile operator (the mobile phone (GSM or UMTS)), or with the Credit Card Grouping, for the payment aspects.
• a ticketing system is understood to mean a system in which there is a dual association 1 transaction-1 contract (case of transport) or then in the case of figures where one is in a multiple situation 1 contract - n transactions (that is to say that each time there is a transaction, there is reference to a contract in general, that passed with the mobile operator (the mobile phone (GSM or UMTS)), or with the Credit Card Grouping, for the payment aspects.
• GSM mobile phone
• UMTS Credit Card Group
• ticket will be used for any means, physical or not, allowing access to a “ticketing” system as defined above. Different possible forms are illustrated from the examples of applications of the invention given below.
• FIG. 1 shows the block diagram of a ticketing system according to the invention, in a variant limited to the case where an operator Y accepts the customers of an operator X.
• FIG. 1 will be described in connection with a transport network system by way of example.
• this scheme also applies to a mobile radio system or a banking network system.
• the operator Y has a central station 101 which regulates the entire system.
• This central station is connected by links 102 to a set of remote stations 103 in which the services operate.
• the central station 101 is located in the centralized service building of an urban bus company, and the stations 103 are the validators 110 located on the buses, which make it possible to authorize the access of the passengers. to these buses.
• the single connections which are shown in the figure will be branched, with concentrators and intermediate processing units.
• a customer of this operator Y who arrives on the bus validates his ticket 104 issued by Y, a contactless smart card for example, by presenting it to the validator 110.
• validator recognizes the ticket, tests its validity, date, route ..., and authorizes the passage of the traveler, for example by lighting a green light.
• the validator would activate a turnstile, for example.
• the most used solution consists in providing the validator with sufficient intelligence, that is to say say a computer sufficiently powerful and provided with sufficient memory, to deal with the problem of validation locally in the station 103 itself.
• the problem of interoperability consists in that a traveler provided with a ticket 105 issued by the other operator X receives from the validator 110 the authorization to access the bus after having presented his ticket 105, without the processing leading to the issue of this authorization by the system Y is carried out by this system itself in a manner identical to the processing leading to the issuing of the authorization given to the holder of the ticket 104.
• Such a processing mode would allow operator Y to know all the commercial policy of operator X, as well as the characteristics, possibly nominative, of a large part of X's customers. It could, for example, determine that certain customers of operator X benefit from a particularly advantageous rate and are significant consumers, which it would then be interesting to solicit directly.
• the invention therefore proposes to delimit in station 103 a sub-assembly 106, which for the sake of convenience we will call in the rest of this text "consulate".
• this consulate 106 may be in the form of hardware means and / or software means distributed in a variable manner according to the needs of the implementation and / or the needs of the separate operators.
• the bottom line is that the consulate 106 constitutes a structure sufficiently isolated from the rest of the station for the exchanges between these two parties to be strictly limited by the will of the two operators, in such a way that neither of them can have access to the confidential data contained in the part reserved for the other.
• the consulate may be in central 101 or between the central and the stations.
• the consulate 106 therefore includes all that is necessary to be able to decode the information contained on the ticket 105 issued by operator X and to validate access to the passenger's bus equipped with this ticket 105.
• the part of station 103 reserved for operator Y does not include in addition to the situation where there is no consulate in this station, only the strictly necessary elements, a few lines of computer code for example, to be able to carry out exchanges with the consulate 106, which are very simplified.
• the validator 110 identifies that the ticket 105 presented to him is a ticket from operator X, he immediately transmits to the consulate 106 the information which is read on this ticket, and which in principle has no meanings for him since the essential data, the type of transport contract for example, may very well only be represented by a few bytes whose meaning is known only to the operator X, said information may be accompanied by logistical data such as date and place.
• the operator X then performs its validation processing, which in principle is similar to that carried out by the validator 110 for tickets 104, and retransmits the acceptance, or possibly the refusal, of access on board the 'bus.
• the validator then authorizes, or refuses, access to the traveler.
• this acceptance is supplemented by some data making it possible to further qualify the type of service provided by operator Y to the traveler of operator X, for example an indication of distance of the journey performed.
• These data are then transmitted to the central station 101, either directly or in deferred time, after storage for the day for example, by the link 102. They will then be transmitted from the central station 101 of the operator Y to the central station 201 of operator X, so that he can manage his own customers and remunerate operator Y for the services rendered to these same customers. This remuneration is done according to an agreed method, which essentially consists in defining a specific tariff for each service rendered by operator Y to customers of operator X.
• this transmission has been represented by a link 107 from the central station 101 to the central station 201, but in practice it can be done by any other means, for example by exchanging magnetic tapes, as is done between banks. for clearing operations.
• the consulate 106 therefore includes a certain number of data, tariffs for example, liable to vary more or less frequently. In the example described for a bus transport system, these changes are relatively infrequent, but they can be much more frequent in other applications, for example in cellular telephone telecommunications systems. To facilitate the updating of these data, the invention further proposes to have them transit from the central station 201 of operator X to the consulate 106 contained in the terminal stations 103 through the central station 101 of operator Y and its links 102 with stations 103.
• these data and more generally all the programming of the consulate 106, are transmitted from the central station 201 to the central station 101 via a link 108, which is here represented in a wire form as the link 107, but who can also use other means such as an exchange of magnetic tapes.
• These data will then be retransmitted by the central station 101 to the consulate 106 via the links 102 and the other organs of the station 103.
• this communication will be done via an encryption system of known type. We will use for example a security application module known by the acronym SAM.
• the invention also proposes to use such a SAM system to send, from the consulate 106 to the central station 201, a certain number of data relating to the customers carrying the ticket 105 and whose operator X does not wish them to are known to the operator Y.
• the tickets 104 and 105 must be of the same type for the reader to be common.
• the consulate must operate under the same operating system as the rest of station 103.
• the invention is however not limited to such close compatibility. It extends to systems where the hardware and the software would be much more different, but by accepting a complication of realization and a cost all the greater as this difference increases.
• the outputs of the readers could be linked to a validator 110 and to a consulate 106 physically separate, only connected by links allowing the minimum of exchanges described above.
• FIG. 2 illustrates a multi-operator ticketing system according to the invention, applied to GSM or UMTS mobile telephone networks in the case where the networks belong to an operator Z.
• the consulate 106 takes the appearance of a component installed in the means 103 which are specific means of the network, namely the equipment of the basic cell.
• the consulate 106 makes it possible to initiate the dialogue between the smart card 105 - TX mobile phone (or smart card - TY phone) couple and the network according to the same principle of identification of the operator X (or Y) transmitting the smart card, identification of the user, recognition of his rights to consume then recording of the data relating to the transaction According to the same modalities these data, possibly encrypted (except those necessary for the operator Z of the infrastructure to claim a payment to the operator concerned X (or Y), are recorded either at the level of the basic equipment or at the level of the central system Z of the network operator for subsequent return to the operator X (or
• FIG. 3 illustrates a multi-operator ticketing system according to the invention, applied to the networks of banks if the networks belong to an operator Z.
• this concept of neighborhood interoperability also applies to a banking environment for which the stations 103 are the distributing terminals belonging to a bank and usable by separate bankers without there being, as opposed to the existing system in France, need to connect to an authorization center.
• the consulate 106 takes the appearance of a component installed in the means 103 which are specific means of the banking network (the distributing terminals).
• the consulate 106 makes it possible to initiate the dialogue between this terminal 103 of a bank Y and the bank card 105 belonging to another bank X according to the same principle of identification of the bank issuing the card, of identification of the 'user, recognition of their rights to consume then recording of data relating to the transaction.
• this data is recorded at the bank terminal, then returned to the central system of the operator Z of the network for subsequent restitution.

Landscapes

• Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
• Finance (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Devices For Checking Fares Or Tickets At Control Points (AREA)
• Ticket-Dispensing Machines (AREA)
• Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)
• Hardware Redundancy (AREA)
• Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)
• Control Of Vending Devices And Auxiliary Devices For Vending Devices (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (2)

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Family Applications (1)

Country Status (8)

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Family Cites Families (3)

• 1999
  • 1999-06-09 FR FR9907288A patent/FR2794916B1/fr not_active Expired - Fee Related
• 2000
  • 2000-06-07 ES ES00940447T patent/ES2263477T3/es not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2000-06-07 AT AT00940447T patent/ATE324643T1/de not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2000-06-07 EP EP00940447A patent/EP1264282B1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2000-06-07 WO PCT/FR2000/001550 patent/WO2000075875A2/fr active IP Right Grant
  • 2000-06-07 AU AU55384/00A patent/AU5538400A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2000-06-07 DE DE60027605T patent/DE60027605T2/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2000-06-07 CN CN00811404.8A patent/CN1421023A/zh active Pending

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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