WO2002047041A2

WO2002047041A2 - Prepayment meter

Info

Publication number: WO2002047041A2
Application number: PCT/IB2001/002332
Authority: WO
Inventors: David James Smart; Franco Giovanni Pucci
Original assignee: Merlin Gerin S.A. (Proprietary) Limited
Priority date: 2000-12-08
Filing date: 2001-12-07
Publication date: 2002-06-13
Also published as: WO2002047041A3; AU2002222325A1

Abstract

A prepayment meter comprises measurement means for measuring a flow of at least one utility to a consumer thereof; a controller operable to regulate the flow of the utility to the consumer; and an interface facility having input means for inputting credit data, representative of a fund of credit, from a token, the interface facility being co-operable with the measurement means and the controller to regulate the flow of the utility to the consumer as a function of the fund of credit; and is characterized in that the input means is adapted to receive credit data from at least two different types of token.

Description

PREPAYMENT METER

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a prepayment meter and, more particularly, to a prepayment meter of the type which is used to dispense a utility to a consumer against a prepayment made by the consumer.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

Prepayment meters for dispensing utilities such as water, electricity and gas to consumers against prepayments made by such consumers are well known in the art.

Such a prepayment meter generally includes a User Interface Unit (UIU) which provides an interface to the meter for the consumer, and a Utility Control Unit (UCU) which measures the consumption of the utility dispensed and controls the availability of the utility to the consumer in accordance with prepayment criteria. The UIU and UCU may be contained in a single housing, or may be physically remote from, but electrically connected to each other, in a split prepayment meter. This latter type of design provides for increased security as the UCU, which is vulnerable to tampering by consumers, can be rendered inaccessible by the consumer.

In order to enable dispensing of the utility to occur, the consumer is required to introduce monetary credit into the meter through the UIU, which has a display for viewing information stored therein and for providing feedback to the consumer during operation of the unit. Monetary credit can be provided by the insertion of a token representing a certain electronic monetary credit into the UIU to activate the UCU. The prepayment meter can then be operated autonomously to dispense the utility.

Tokens can be either physical tokens which activate coin feed apparatus in the UIU, or the token may be encoded on a smart card which is inserted into a reader in the UIU, or the token may be a numeric code which is input to the UIU by means of an associated key pad.

The use of such tokens requires a utility provider to set up a vending infrastructure which is inflexible and which does not allow for the prepayment meters to be easily upgraded to utilise a different type of token.

In this specification, the word "token" is to be given a wide meaning and includes any portable means for transferring a fund of credit including a means having stored thereon data representative of a value of a fund of credit or an amount of a utility.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of this invention to provide a prepayment meter which will, at least partially alleviate the abovementioned disadvantages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to the invention there is provided a prepayment meter, comprising measurement means for measuring a flow of at least one utility to a consumer thereof; a controller operable to regulate the flow of the utility to the consumer; and an interface facility having input means for inputting credit data, representative of a fund of credit, from a token, the interface facility being co-operable with the measurement means and the controller to regulate the flow of the utility to the consumer as a function of the fund of credit; characterized in that the input means is adapted to receive credit data from at least two different types of token.

The input means may include a keypad for manually inputting encoded credit data from a credit token.

The input means may include a card reader for receiving a memory card-type token having encoded credit data stored thereon and for receiving the encoded credit data from the memory card-type token.

The input means may include a smartcard reader for receiving a smartcard having a storage memory, in which is stored encoded credit data, and for receiving the encoded credit data from the storage memory. The smartcard may be a multi- application smartcard, one of the applications therof being an electronic purse.

The prepayment meter may be operable to enable different utilities to be dispensed to the consumer. Then, the different utilities may include any two or more of water, electricity and gas.

The measurement means and the controller may be eatable remotely from the interface facility.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

One embodiment of the invention is described below, by way of example only, and with reference to the accompanying drawing, which shows a functional representation of a prepayment meter according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Referring to the accompanying drawing, a prepayment meter is indicated generally by reference numeral (1 ).

The prepayment meter (1) is a split meter and includes UIU (2) having an interface facility (9) and a UCU (3) separate from, and eatable remotely from, the UIU and connected thereto by means of an electrical circuit (4). The UCU enables utilities such as water (5), electricity (6) and gas (7) to be supplied to a consumer (not shown), and includes measurement means (5a, 6a and 7a) for measuring the flow of each utility to the consumer, and a controller (8) operable to regulate the flow of the utilities to the consumer by means of appropriate control devices such as shut-off valves (5b and 7b) and an electrical circuit breaker (6b).

The interface facility (2) of the UIU has input means in the form of a keypad (10) and a smartcard reader (11 ) connected thereto.

In use, a consumer wishing to purchase utilities by means of prepayment acquires a credit token representing monetary credit, from a vendor at a vending site. The credit token may be a keypad token in the form of a numeric code, generally printed on a slip of paper, which is then manually input by the user into the UIU (2) by means of the keypad (10).

Alternatively, the credit token may be a smartcard (not shown), having a storage memory on which is stored encoded data representative of a monetary credit. The smartcard is then inserted by the consumer into the smartcard reader (11) and decoded for credit by the interface facility (9).

Once credit has been introduced into the prepayment meter (1) by either of these two methods, the interface facility (9) co-operates with the controller (8) and the measurement means (5a, 6a and 7a) to regulate the flow of utilities to the consumer in accordance with pre-defined prepayment criteria. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the prepayment meter (1) enables the consumer to purchase credit tokens of different types and to utilise both of these types of credit tokens in the meter (1), thereby providing greater flexibility both to the consumer and to the vendors of the utilities.

Numerous modifications are possible to this embodiment without departing from the scope of the invention. In particular, the UIU may be configured to accept different types of credit tokens other than smartcards or keypad tokens. Further, the input facility may be a card reader for receiving a memory card with an encoded credit token stored on the memory card. Still further, the need for purchasing a prepayment token may be eliminated through the use of multi-application smartcards in conjunction with the smartcard reader (11). For example, one of the applications in such a multi- application smartcard may be an electronic purse, enabling a consumer to make a prepayment for utilities merely by the insertion into the smartcard reader (11) of such a smartcard in which the electronic purse has a credit balance. The funds required for the desired prepayment would then be debited from the electronic purse on the smartcard and transferred to the credit of the utility vendor.

The invention therefore provides a prepayment meter which offers a consumer greater convenience to effect prepayments for utilities.

Claims

1. A prepayment meter, comprising measurement means for measuring a flow of at least one utility to a consumer thereof; a controller operable to regulate the flow of the utility to the consumer; and an interface facility having input means for inputting credit data, representative of a fund of credit, from a token, the interface facility being co-operable with the measurement means and the controller to regulate the flow of the utility to the consumer as a function of the fund of credit; characterized in that the input means is adapted to receive credit data from at least two different types of token.

2. The prepayment meter as claimed in Claim 1 , in which the input means includes a keypad for manually inputting encoded credit data from a credit token.

3. The prepayment meter as claimed in Claim 1 , in which the input means includes a card reader for receiving a memory card-type token having encoded credit data stored thereon and for receiving the encoded credit data from the memory card-type token.

4. The prepayment meter as claimed in Claim 1 , in which the input means includes a smartcard reader for receiving a smartcard having a storage memory, in which is stored encoded credit data, and for receiving the encoded credit data from the storage memory.

5. The prepayment meter as claimed in Claim 4, in which the smartcard is a multi-application smartcard, one of the applications therof being an electronic purse.

6. The prepayment meter as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, which is operable to enable different utilities to be dispensed to the consumer.

7. The prepayment meter as claimed in Claim 6, in which the different utilities include any two or more of water, electricity and gas.

8. The prepayment meter as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, in which the measurement means and the controller are beatable remotely from the interface facility.

9. A prepayment meter substantially as herein described and illustrated with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawing.