GB2518835A - Vehicle parking indicator system - Google Patents

Abstract

A system to visually indicate inside a vehicle that a parking space has been paid for and the parking time paid for has not elapsed. The system comprising; an in-vehicle electronic device comprising a visual indicator means, a telecommunications receiving circuit, a microprocessor and operatively coupled memory logic, an electronic timing circuit and a mobile telecommunications device comprising a GPS location system. The mobile telecommunications device being configured to make an electronic payment to a remote computer server, the remote computer server configured to calculate, record and communicate details of the parking fee based upon the time of day and location of the vehicle as indicated by the GPS location system. The visual indicator inside the vehicle may comprise coloured LEDs to indicate when the pareking payment has been made or when the parking payment has expired.

Description

VEHICLE PARKING INDICATOR SYSTEM

DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates generally to a system and a method for visually indicating whether a vehicle parking place has been paid for and that the parking time paid for has not elapsed.

The traditional method of paying for a vehicle parking place by means of purchasing a printed ticket from a parking meter and displaying the ticket in the vehicle windscreen is gradually being replaced by means of electronic payment via a mobile device to a central computer server and recording the location and registration of the vehicle being parked.

Such a method of paying for a vehicle parking has a number of advantages. The user is no longer required to carry coins to pay the parking meter. The user can remotely pay an additional fee if they have exceeded the initial parking time that has been paid for, without the need to physically go back to the vehicle. The owner of the parking space is not required to collect coins from the parking meter and consequently there is no risk of the parking meter being vandalised by thieves trying to break in to the coin collection system.

However this method of paying for the parking space without a physical ticket being printed and displayed in the window of the vehicle suffers from a significant disadvantage; the inspector patrolling to see if the vehicle parking space has been paid for does not have any visual means of knowing if the vehicle parking space has been paid. Consequently it is necessary for the patrolling inspector to enter each vehicle registration in a mobile telecommunications device and to then establish a communications connection with the remote payment computer to determine if the vehicle parking space has been validly paid for.

This time consuming manual inspection of the validity of the parking payment for electronic vehicle parking payment systems has greatly limited the use of such systems and meant that ticket printing meter systems have remained in widespread use despite their numerous disadvantages.

I

It would therefore be desirable to have a system and method for enabling a robust visual indication of the validity of a vehicle parking payment within the vehicle, where the parking payment has been made via an electronic payment means.

Such a system would have the numerous advantages of electronic payment for the parking space, whilst still allowing an inspector the advantage of the traditional ticket based systems by being easily and quickly able to see if the parking space has been validly paid for.

In a first aspect, the invention provides a system to indicate if a vehicle parking space has been validly paid for, the system comprising; an in-vehicle electronic device comprising a visual indicator means, a telecommunications receiving circuit, a microprocessor operatively coupled to memory logic and an electronic timing circuit; a mobile telecommunications device comprising a GPS location system, configured to make an electronic payment to a remote computer server; a remote computer server configured to calculate, record and communicate details of the parking fee based upon the time of day and location of the vehicle as indicated by the GPS location system; wherein in use the mobile telecommunications device communicates the position of the vehicle based upon it's GPS ca-ordinate system and communicates via a keypad entry the length of time of the desired parking duration to the remote server, the remote server contains a computer program which calculates the parking fee based upon the location of the vehicle, the desired length of parking and the time of day and day of the week and transmits this back to the mobile telecommunications device; the mobile telecommunications device makes an electronic payment of the parking fee to the remote server, the remote server processes the electronic payment and if successful communicates to the mobile telecommunications device an encrypted code comprising details of the duration of the parking that has been paid for; the mobile telecommunications device receives the encrypted code from the remote server and transmits this onwards to the in-vehicle electronics device.

The in-vehicle electronic device comprising the microprocessor and operatively coupled memory logic is configured to decrypt the encrypted signal transmitted from the mobile telecommunications device and to set the in-vehicle parking status to a valid payment state and to activate the visual indicator means to indicate that payment for the parking space has been successfully made.

The visual indicator means comprises an LCD display, configured to display one symbol or colour when the parking payment has been made such that the vehicle is in a valid parking state and another symbol or colour when the parking payment has expired and the vehicle is no longer in a valid parking state.

Alternatively, the visual indicator means may comprise two or more LEDs of different colour, one LED configured to come on when the parking payment has been made and one LED configured to come on (and the other one to go out) when the parking payment has expired.

The electronic timing circuit in the in-vehicle device will determine the parking payment status by counting down from or comparing with a real time clock time, the valid parking time duration contained in the encrypted code sent from the remote servitor, and causing the visual indicator means to switch from the parking paid display state to the parking expired display state, when the valid parking time duration has expired.

The mobile telecommunications device can re-connect to the remote server to request an additional parking period, the remote server then communicates an additional encrypted code containing the duration of the additional parking period to the mobile telecommunications device which in turn communicates this to the in-vehicle electronic device.

In a preferred embodiment the LCD display would display a security or ID code. This security or ID code would be configured to be unique to the vehicle being parked and would thus reduce the desirability of a thief stealing the unit for use in another vehicle.

The security or ID code would have the additional advantage of making it harder for a user to attempt to bypass the payment method and modify the electronics to always indicate that a valid parking payment has been made when payment has not been made.

The above and other characteristics, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate, by way of example, the principles of the invention. This description is given for the sake of example only, without limiting the scope of the invention. The reference figures quoted below refer to the attached drawings.

Figure 1 shows a schematic drawing of the electronic components and configuration of the system.

The present invention will be described with respect to particular embodiments and with reference to certain drawings but the invention is not limited thereto but only by the claims. The drawings described are only schematic and non-limiting. In the drawings, the size of some of the elements may be exaggerated and not drawn to scale for illustrative purposes. The dimensions and the relative dimensions do not correspond to actual reductions to practice of the invention.

Furthermore, the terms first, second, third and the like in the description and in the claims, are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a sequence, either temporally or spatially, in ranking or in any other manner. It is to be understood that the terms so used are interchangeable under appropriate circumstances and that the embodiments of the invention described herein are capable of operation in other sequences than described or illustrated herein.

Moreover, the terms top, bottom, over, under and the like in the description and claims are used for descriptive purposes and not necessarily for describing relative positions.

It is to be understood that the terms so used are interchangeable under appropriate circumstances and that the embodiments of the invention described herein are capable of operation in other orientations than described or illustrated herein.

It is to be noticed that the term "comprising", used in the claims, should not be interpreted as being restricted to the means listed thereafter; it does not exclude other elements or steps. It is thus to be interpreted as specifying the presence of the stated features, integers, steps or components as referred to, but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps or components or groups thereof. Thus, the scope of the expression "a device comprising a means A and B" should not be limited to devices consisting only of components A and B. It means that with respect to the present invention, the only relevant components of the device are A and B. Similarly, it is to be noticed that the term "connected", used in the description, should not be interpreted as being restricted to direct connections only. Thus, the scope of the expression "a device A connected to a device B" should not be limited to devices or systems wherein an output of device A is directly connected to an input of device B. It means that there exists a path between an output A and an input B which may be a path including other devices or means. "Connected" may mean that two or more elements are either in direct physical or electrical contact, or that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

Reference throughout this specification to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment" or "in an embodiment" in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, but may refer to different embodiments. Furthermore, the particular features, structures or characteristics of any embodiment or aspect of the invention may be combined in any suitable manner, as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from this disclosure, in one or more embodiments.

Similarly it should be appreciated that in the description of exemplary embodiments of the invention, various features of the invention are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of one or more of the various inventive aspects. This method of disclosure, however is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed invention requires more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment. Thus, the claims following the detailed description are hereby expressly incorporated into this detailed description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment of this invention.

Furthermore, while some embodiments described herein include some features included in other embodiments, combinations of features of different embodiments are meant to be within the scope of the invention, and form yet further embodiments, as will be understood by those skilled in the art. For example, in the following claims, any of the claimed embodiments can be used in any combination.

In the description provided herein, numerous specific details are set forth. However, it is understood that embodiments of the invention may be practised without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure an understanding of this

description.

In the discussion of the invention, unless stated to the contrary, the disclosure of alternative values for the upper or lower limit of the permitted range of a parameter, coupled with an indication that one of the values is more highly preferred than the other, is to be construed as an implied statement that each intermediate value of said parameter, lying between more preferred and the less preferred of said alternatives, is itself preferred to said less preferred value and also to each value lying between said less preferred value and said intermediate value.

The invention will now be described by a detailed description of one embodiment of the invention. It is clear that other embodiments of the invention can be configured according to the knowledge of persons skilled in the art without departing from the true spirit or technical teaching of the invention, the invention being limited only by the terms of the appended claims.

Figure 1 is an electronic schematic of the vehicle parking system.

The in-vehicle electronic device comprises; a programmable microprocessor, configurable electronic memory operatively coupled to the microprocessor, an LCD display device an electronic timing circuit, comprising a real-time clock a wireless communication receiver channel operatively coupled to the microprocessor.

The in-vehicle electronic device is powered by 60 a voltage converter circuit configured to have 12V input from the vehicle battery supply and a 5V output to power the electronic components.

a mobile telecommunications device comprising an in-built GPS device a remote server computer connected to a mobile communications input channel and programmed to calculate the parking tees rates based upon the GPS location of the mobile device making the payment.

In operation the user enters details of his vehicle registration and credit card details in the mobile communications device 70. This data may be stored inside the mobile device 70 so as to avoid the user needing to re-enter this data every time they park their vehicle. Alternatively this data may also be stored on the remote server computer and linked to the telephone number of the mobile device 70.

The GPS co-ordinates of the mobile device 70 are communicated with the remote computer server 80. The remote computer server 80 can identify the location of the car park from the GPS co-ordinates and can then communicate the prices for parking at that location back to the mobile device 70 which will show these to the user by means of a mobile app.

The user will enter into the mobile device 70 the amount of time they wish to park for and this will be communicated to the remote server 80.

Based upon the fee rate of the parking location and the day and time of day and the amount of time that the user has entered the remote server 80 will process the payment based upon the users credit card details.

When payment has been successfully made the remote server 80 will communicate a valid parking signal code to the mobile device 70. This signal code will contain details of the vehicle and valid time duration of the parking session that has been paid for.

Preferably this signal code will be encrypted.

The mobile device 70 will communicate the valid parking signal code to the wireless communication receiver channel 50 which is operatively coupled to the microprocessor 10. The microprocessor 10 could also be a micro controller unit (MCU).

If the signal code is encrypted the microprocessor 10 will decrypt the code by use of decryptions algorithms stored in its operatively coupled memory 20. Alternatively the decryption of the valid signal code could take place on the mobile device 70.

The microprocessor 10 will then send an appropriate display signal to the LCD display device 30. This display signal will provide some indication that the parking is valid such as a large tick or a solid green colour or another easily identifiable symbol that would be known to the parking inspector. The display signal preferably would also display the vehicle registration, this is to prevent the device being used in a vehicle to which it is not registered. The display signal preferably would also display the location of the car park, this is to prevent the user parking the vehicle in one location but paying for the parking in a different location (as indicated by the GPS device) where the parking rates are cheaper or parking is allowed at different days or for different durations.

The microcontroller 10 will communicate the duration of the parking to the electronic timing circuit 40. The electronic timing circuit 40 will then indicate to the microprocessor 10 when the valid parking time has expired. At this time the microprocessor 10 will communicate a parking not valid signal to the display 30 which will then display an appropriate symbol recognisable to an inspector.

The user can pay an additional fee from the mobile device 70 to the remote server computer 80 to increase the parking duration. The remote server computer 80 will examine the total length of time the vehicle has been parked in this location and if this is within the rules of the parking location (programmed in to the remote server computer 80) a new valid parking signal will be transmitted back to the mobile device and the valid parking display method described above will continue again until the new valid parking time duration expires.