GB2123591A

GB2123591A - Parking cards

Info

Publication number: GB2123591A
Application number: GB08317302A
Authority: GB
Inventors: David Samuel Rocklin
Original assignee: NORTON AND WRIGHT Ltd
Current assignee: NORTON AND WRIGHT Ltd
Priority date: 1982-07-13
Filing date: 1983-06-24
Publication date: 1984-02-01
Also published as: GB8317302D0

Abstract

The present invention provides a card, specifically a parking ticket, wherein the user scrapes away a covering mask to reveal a day of the week or month corresponding to the day of use of the card. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Improvements relating to parking cards This invention relates to cards, the function of which is to indicate that the user of the card has a certain right of location at a particular time. For example, the card may be of a nature which is for indicating that the user has the right to park his car in a particular location, and at a particular time. Alternatively, the card may indicate that the user has the right to be travelling on a public transport vehicle at a particular time.

The cards are of a nature so as to be usable over a period, for example a number of days or months, although it may simply be for a single period, say for a one hour parking period.

Various forms of car parking cards are known, these car parking cards being of a nature which can be used repeatedly. Thus, the card may comprise one or more relatively rotatable cardboard discs having markings thereon indicating hours, days, months and so on, and when the user parks his car in the particular location, he sets the disc to the date and time, and he leaves the card on display in his vehicle so that an attendant will be aware of the date and time of arrival.

These car parking cards can be readily forged, and if forgeries are used, there is a loss of revenue to the organisation to whom parking fees must be paid, and also there is the unauthorised utilisation of the parking spaces whereby persons who have the right to park in these places are inconvenienced.

The present invention seeks to provide a card with added security, and usable in circumstances such as mentioned above for the effective control of parking of cars.

The present invention combines a printed ticket and a mask material, of the type commonly used in lottery tickets, which covers printing indicative of a right, for example a parking right and which is revealed by the irreversible removal of the mask by means for example of scratching said material with the edge of a coin.

It will be readily understood how such a ticket contributes effectively to a car parking situation, because the ticket can be printed to correspond to any particular parking period, for example for one hour on a particular day or it can cover a season or a whole year, the user or attendant simply abrading the mask material for the period of parking for the particular time.

In one example, the card may be printed in selected regions with the months of the year, and, also in selected regions, with the numbers 1 to 31 representing days in a month. Such card would be for use over the period of one month and the user would on the 1 st of the month, say January, in which the card is used, abrade the mask material covering the printing of the word January or "Jan", and also the mask material covering the printing representative of the day on which the card is used. On another day, if the card is used, the covering material overlying the date of the day in question would be removed and so on until the card is completely used up. With such an arrangement an attendant would know at a glance, whether or not a user was using a genuine ticket.

Further security could be added by providing that surrounding the month and day markings is a coloured background, and that coloured background could be changed during the printing of the ticket from month to month.

The covering material may also be overprinted with the month indications and day indications to make it easy for the user to identify which regions of the covering material should be removed on particular days.

The card may in addition be provided with additional marked sections representing hourly periods.

Embodiments of the invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein:- Fig. 1 is a front view of a card according to a first embodiment of the invention; Fig. 2 is a sectional elevation of a portion of the card shown in Fig. 1 , to an enlarged scale; Fig. 3 is a front view of a section of the card, showing how the covering material is irreversibly removed; and Fig. 4 shows a known card which can be adapted to a card according to a second embodiment of the invention.

Referring to the drawings, the card 1 is shown as provided with printing 2 indicating the function of the card, i.e. that it is a daily parking card. In twelve discrete areas 3, there are indicated the months of the year, whilst in thirty-one discrete areas 4, there are indicated the numerals 1 to 31 inclusive, being representative of days of the year.

Each of the areas 3 and 4 carries a removable mask material which can be scratched away using the edge of a coin to reveal information, which may simply be a colour, or the absence of information.

If reference is made to Fig. 2 it can be seen how each area 3 and 4 is made up. The card comprises a base layer 10 of card stock material, on which is coated a metallic layer 12, of aluminium foil or the like. The information to be concealed, represented by numeral 14 is then printed on the upper surface of the foil 12, and the information 1 4 is covered by an opaque varnish layer 1 6 to protect same during the abrading process to be described.

On the varnish 1 6 is applied a removable coating material 18, which may be of a latex based material, and finally, in the example shown in Fig. 2, there is applied to the upper surface of the coating material 18, printed information 20, which in the example may be representative of a month of the year, or a day of the month.

In order to reveal the information 14, the layer 18 and the printing 20 are scraped away using the edge of a coin. Fig. 3 shows the layer 1 8 partly abraded, and revealing part of the information 14.

In the example of Fig. 3, the information 14 is in fact the numeral 20 surrounded by a blue background 1 4A. The layer 1 8 is in fact a gray coating material and the printing 20, of the numeral 20 is in black.

The utilisation of the device will be readily understood. The owner of the card, on arriving at the car park on any particular day, say January 20th, parks his car in the allocated area, and either he or the attendant abrades date 20 as shown in Fig. 1, and partly in Fig. 3, it being assumed that the coating covering the image 14 of the month of January has already been removed. In the example illustrated the background of the image 14 of the month of January is in red, and the colour contrasts of course provide a ready means of identifying the day during which parking is taking place. There may be nothing under the mask material, its absence indicating the day and month of use.

The invention combines the properties of an abradable coating to conceal information with the requirement for a card or ticket to be usable at particular times and its use having to be identifiable at a glance. The invention provides a card which mitigates against the production of forged cards, because from month to month or week to week, new cards can be provided with different background colourings.

The cards or tickets may be collated in books of ten and it is possible to provide for hourly parking facilities in addition to daily parking facilities as illustrated by the example.

The principle of the invention can be adapted for cards for other uses.

For example, there is shown in Fig. 4 a card 100 illustrated as a parking card which is currently in use in the Royal Borough of Kensington s Chelsea. This card is useable by residents who have parking facilities in the Borough, and in addition to the card the resident also has a permit issued by the Borough. To use the card the resident displays the permit along with the card in his motor vehicle when he is parking in the Borough and he purchases stamps to cover the individual days indicated on the card. In the case of card 100 which is for June 1982, assume that the resident is parked on Thursday, 3rd. On that day the card 100 will be displayed and will be covered by the appropriate stamp. The resident purchases these stamps from any newsagent in the Borough and simply sticks them over the parking days in question. Quite clearly, this system is open to abuse insofar as the resident need buy only one months supply of stamps and these can be used repeatedly if they are removably attached to the card 1 00. With the adaptation of this card according to the present invention, the days on the card would, as in the previous example, be covered by irreversibly removable coating material and the user to use the card would simply scrape away the coating material covering the day on which the card is in use. Any attendant checking on the parking cards can therefore easily see which cards are properly parked and which are improperly parked and he can also see that the resident has properly used his card by scraping away the coating material for which day the card is parked.

Claims

1. A card having means indicative of location, for example a parking right, which is revealed by the irreversible removal, for example by scratching with the edge of a coin, of irreversibly removable mask material carried by the card.

2. A card according to claim 1, wherein the card is a parking card printed in selected areas with one or more months of the year and in other areas with days in the month, the mask being such that selective removal of some reveals the days of the month for which the card applies.

3. A card having means indicative of a right of location substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.