WO2014199173A1

WO2014199173A1 - Car park monitoring system and method

Info

Publication number: WO2014199173A1
Application number: PCT/GB2014/051821
Authority: WO
Inventors: Waqaas FAROOQ
Original assignee: G24 Ltd
Priority date: 2013-06-13
Filing date: 2014-06-13
Publication date: 2014-12-18
Also published as: GB2515070A; GB2529366A; GB201310508D0; GB201522189D0

Abstract

A system for monitoring a car park is disclosed, the system including a camera located at an entrance to a car park, a central repository and one or more user-interface devices such as smart phones. In use, the camera captures an image of a vehicle registration plate and transmits the image to the repository,whereupon the repository identifies the vehicle registration number, compares the vehicle registration number to one or more lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in a memory,generates an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists and transmits the alert to the user-interface devices.A method for

Description

CAR PARK MONITORING SYSTEM AND METHOD

This invention relates to the monitoring of cark pars and particularly but not exclusively to a system and method for sending alerts relating to the movement of vehicles in the vicinity of a car park. The financial loss suffered by retail outlets as a result of crime, particularly theft, is substantial. For example, a recent study by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) revealed that retail crime resulted in a loss of GBP1.6 billion in 2012. A substantial proportion of retail crime is committed by repeat offenders that periodically or systematically target certain retail outlets. Accordingly, there is a need to identify such criminals and alert store managers or security staff of their presence, or likely future presence, in the vicinity of a retail outlet.

There is also a need for retail outlets or other businesses to identify valuable customers and alert members of staff of their presence or likely future presence. Such identification will enable the retail outlet or other business to provide the customer with appropriate treatment and hence encourage continued custom.

We have now devised a system and method that addresses at least some of the above-mentioned needs.

In accordance with the present invention, as seen from a first aspect, there is provided a system for monitoring a car park, the system comprising:

a camera located at or proximal to an entrance to a car park and arranged for capturing an image of a vehicle registration plate;

a repository arranged to receive the image from the camera, the repository comprising a processor arranged for identifying the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate, comparing the vehicle registration number to one or more lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in a memory and generating an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists; and, one or more portable user-interface devices arranged to receive the alert.

It will be appreciated that the term "vehicle registration number" is used herein to encompass alphanumerical vehicle identifiers such as the alphanumeric vehicle registration numbers used in the United Kingdom. The applicant has realised that a retail outlet, retail park or other business premises typically has a car park associated therewith, particularly if the business is located outside of the city centre. Advantageously, the vehicles entering the car park provide a useful indication of the persons about to enter the retail outlet, retail park or other business premises. It therefore is envisaged that the one or more users will be stakeholders of the car park. The users may include a manager of a retail outlet or other business affiliated with the car park or proximal to the car park. Alternatively or additionally, the users may include a person tasked with providing security for the affiliated businesses. Alternatively or additionally, the users may include a manager of the car park and/or a person tasked with providing security for the car park.

One advantage of the system of the present invention is that the indication provided to the user is predictive i.e. the vehicle is identified at the car park prior to the occupants of the vehicle entering the retail outlets or other business premises. The system is preferably arranged to transmit the alert to the portable user-interface devices in realtime, thereby providing the appropriate members of staff within the retail outlets or other businesses with the opportunity to take the appropriate action in anticipation of the occupants of the vehicle arriving at the business premises.

The system may comprise a plurality of cameras for capturing images of vehicle registration plates, each camera being located at or proximal to an entrance of a respective car park when the system is installed. The one or more lists may comprise a list of nationally or locally known vehicles of interest. This list may be linked to a police database containing vehicle registration numbers associated with crime, including vehicle registration numbers of vehicles used in theft and/or burglary. For example, the list may be linked to the Police National Computer (PNC) and/or local force databases.

Alternatively or additionally, the one or more lists may comprise a list of vehicles of interest specific to the camera and hence specific to the car park. This list may be manually compiled and/or amended by the user. This embodiment is advantageous if the user is aware of certain vehicles that are particularly problematic to the car park businesses affiliated with the car park or proximal to the car park. This embodiment may also be advantageous if the user is aware of vehicles that are associated with valuable customers, for example the user may organise a meet-and-greet in the car park. Furthermore, for the case of a plurality of cameras, this embodiment may be advantageous if the user wishes to track staff or contractors. For example, the user may compile a list of registration numbers of vehicles belonging to staff assigned to work in the vicinity of a certain car park and associate this list with the cameras located at the other car parks. In this embodiment, the system is utilised to provide alerts when a vehicle belonging to a member of staff is identified at a car park other than the car park with which they are normally associated. The list may be time-dependent such that the alerts are only generated if the vehicle belonging to the member of staff is identified during the normal hours of employment of the member of staff.

Alternatively or additionally, for the case of a plurality of cameras, the one or more lists may comprise a list of vehicles that have been captured by at least two of said plurality of cameras within a pre-defined time frame. One advantage of this embodiment is that the system generates an alert when a vehicle travels from one car park to another, which may be a sign of suspicious activity, particularly if the car parks are associated with retail outlets. The one or more users may define a first set of users. The camera or plurality of cameras may define a first set of cameras associated with the first set of users. It will be appreciated that as used herein, a "set" of cameras or users encompasses a single camera or a single user. Preferably the system comprises multiple set of users, each sets of users having, each set of users having an associated set of cameras.

In one embodiment, each set of users may belong to a given business. However, users belonging to one business may also opt to share their alerts with users belonging to another business, this sharing of data allowing users to pool knowledge and better protect their assets. In a preferred embodiment, any given camera may belong to one or more sets of cameras and any given user may belong to one or more sets of users.

Upon receiving an image from a camera, the repository is preferably arranged for identifying the camera based on image attribute data transmitted to the repository with the image. The repository is preferably further arranged for identifying the set of users associated with the camera. The one or more lists may be user-specific, in which case the repository may, for each user within the identified set of users, compare the vehicle registration number to one or more user-specific lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in the memory, generate an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists, and instruct transmission of the alert, if generated, to the user.

Preferably the user-interface device comprises a mobile telephone. In one embodiment, the user-interface device may comprise a smart phone running a dedicated vehicle alert application or "app". The repository preferably comprises communication means arranged for communicating the alert to the user-interface device, which may be in the form of a wireless internet connection. The system may comprise one or more input means for enabling the users to compile or edit the one or more of the lists. The input means may comprise may comprise an electronic device, such as a networked terminal or a portable electronic device. The input means may be provided by the user-interface devices. In accordance with the present invention, as seen from a second aspect, there is provided a method of monitoring a car park, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) capturing an image of a vehicle registration plate at or proximal to an entrance to a car park;

(b) communicating the image to a repository;

(c) identifying the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate;

(d) comparing the vehicle registration number to one or more lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in a memory of the repository;

(e) generating an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists; and,

(f) transmitting the alert to one or more portable user-interface devices.

Preferably the alert is transmitted in real-time. The alert is preferably transmitted to the user-interface devices via a wireless internet connection.

Preferably the alert is transmitted to a smart phone or tablet computer running a dedicated vehicle alert application or "app".

The method may comprise capturing images of vehicle registration plates at entrances to a plurality of car parks. The one or more users may define a first set of users. The method may be suitable for alerting multiple set of users, each set of users having an associated set of cameras such that the set of users that receives the alert is dependent upon the camera that captured the image of the vehicle registration plate. The method may further comprise communicating an indication of the car park at which the image was captured to the repository, identifying the set of users associated with said car park and transmitting the alert to user-interface devices associated with said set of users. The one or more lists may be user-specific, in which case the method may comprise, for each user within the identified set of users, comparing the vehicle registration number to one or more user-specific lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in the memory, generating an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists, and transmitting of the alert, if generated, to the user.

The method may further comprise the step of generating said one or more lists, this step preferably being performed at least before step (b) above. The one or more lists may be of the form of any, some or all of the above-described lists.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of a system for alerting one or more users of movements of a vehicle of interest in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 is an illustration of a display of a user-interface device belonging to the system of figure 1 ;

Figure 3 is a flow diagram of a method of alerting one or more users of movements of a vehicle of interest in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 4 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of a portion of the method of figure 3;

Figure 5 is a flow diagram of another embodiment of a portion of the method of figure 3; and.

Figure 6 is a flow diagram of another embodiment of a portion of the method of figure 3.

Referring to figure 1 of the drawings, there is illustrated a system 10 for monitoring the entrances of car parks and alerting users if a vehicle of interest is detected.

The system 10 includes a plurality of cameras 11 located at entrances to respective car parks. The cameras 1 1 are arranged for capturing an image of a vehicle registration plate, the image being in a format suitable for subsequent processing including optical character recognition. Such cameras are typically known as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (AN PR) cameras.

The cameras 10 are securely connected, via a router 12 and firewalls 13, to a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN), denoted schematically by reference numeral 14.

A central repository 15 is connected to the VPN network 14 via a network switch 16. The repository 15 comprises a vehicle repository portion 17 and a user repository portion 18, both of which share access to a central database 19. The repository portions 17, 18 may be integrated within a single processing unit or may each comprise respective processing units in communication with one another. The central repository 15 is provided with a router 20 for communicating alerts generated by the repository 15 to one or more user-interface devices 21. With particular reference to figure 2 of the drawings, the user-interface devices 21 may include smart phones or tablet computers, each device being provided with a dedicating vehicle monitoring app 22. It is envisaged that users will be able to download the app to their smart phones and configure the app to meet their own individual needs. For example, the user may wish to receive real-time alerts, in which case the user will configure the app to send push notifications. Alternatively, the user may wish to periodically receive the alerts, in which case the user will configure the app to operate via pull technology. The system may also be adapted to send SMS or MMS alerts to a mobile telephone in the event that the user's mobile telephone is not provided with the necessary hardware or software for receiving alerts via the monitoring app. Alternatively, the system may be adapted to send email alerts if requested by the user.

With reference to figure 3 of the drawings, in use at step 101 , the cameras 10 capture images of vehicle registration plates at the car park entrances.

Once an image is captured by a given camera 10, it is communicated to the repository 15 via the VPN network 14 at step 102. Image attribute data is communicated with the image, including camera identification data and the time and date of the image. At step 103, the vehicle repository portion 17 of the repository 15 receives the image and executes any image processing techniques necessary to extract the registration number from the image. In particular, the vehicle repository portion 17 may optimise the brightness and contrast of the image, isolate the alphanumeric characters displayed on the vehicle registration plate and perform optical character recognition on the isolated characters.

The user repository portion 18 identifies the users associated with the camera that captured the image of the vehicle registration plate at step 104. In order to execute this step, the user repository portion 18 identifies the camera that captured the image at step 101 by virtue of the image attribute data communicated to the repository 15 alongside the image. The user repository portion 18 then consults the central database 19, which links users with cameras.

For each user that is identified at step 104, one or more sets of rules specific to that user are extracted from the central database 19 at step 105. It is envisaged that the users will be able to set their own rules and, if appropriate, lists upon providing instructions when initially subscribing to the system or via interactions with their user- interface device. At step 106, the repository 15 determines whether it is necessary to send an alert to the user in accordance with the rules extracted at step 104. Two embodiments of step 106 are described below.

With reference to figure 4 of the drawings, in one embodiment, the user specifies a list of vehicles of interest, which is then stored in the central repository 19. This list may include nationally or locally known vehicles of interest, for example vehicles known to the police. It is envisaged that the smart phone or tablet app operable on the user- interface device will permit users to specify whether they wish to sync their list of vehicles of interest with police databases containing the vehicle registration numbers associated with crime such as the Police National Computer (PNC) and/or local force databases. Alternatively or additionally, the user may manually add vehicle registration numbers to the list, for example registration numbers of vehicles belonging to valuable customers or members of staff. The user may also categorise the vehicle registration numbers, for example the user may select from the categories: problematic vehicle; valuable customer vehicle; staff vehicle.

In determining whether it is necessary to send an alert at step 106, the repository 15 compares the vehicle registration number extracted at step 103 to the vehicle registration numbers within the user-specified list. If the vehicle registration number extracted at step 103 matches a vehicle registration number in the list then an alert is generated. The alert specifies the vehicle registration number, details of the vehicle such as the make and model, the date and time that the image of the vehicle registration plate was captured and an identification of the camera that captured the image. If the user has categorised the vehicle registration numbers, the alert includes the category that has been assigned to the vehicle registration number. Another set of rules that may be implemented at step 106 is illustrated in figure 5 of the drawings. The set of rules illustrated in figure 5 may be performed in place of those illustrated in figure 4 or in addition to those illustrated in figure 4. With reference to figure 5, a list of vehicles of interest is automatically generated by the repository 15 at step 106. In order to execute this step, vehicle registration numbers captured by other cameras 10 associated within a pre-defined time-frame with the user are extracted from the central database 19. All vehicle registration numbers captured by other cameras 10 associated with the user may be extracted, or only vehicle registration numbers captured by other cameras 10 within a pre-defined proximity may be extracted. If the vehicle registration number extracted from the captured image at step 103 matches a vehicle registration number in the list vehicle registration numbers extracted from the central database 19 then an alert is generated. In certain circumstances the user may wish to only generate an alert if a certain vehicle registration number has been captured by three or more cameras 10. For example, the user may find that alerts are generated in relation to customers travelling from one store to another in order to purchase an item that was out of stock in the first store. Accordingly, step 106 may comprise extracting vehicle registration numbers that have been captured by other cameras 10 associated with the user at least twice within a pre-defined time frame.

At step 107, the repository 15 sends the alert to the user-interface device 21 of the user.

Steps 105 to 107 are repeated for each user identified at step 104, such that all users associated with the camera 10 and listing the vehicle as an "of interest" vehicle are notified of the vehicle's entry to the car park. At step 108, details of the captured event are stored in the central database 19. These details are stored regardless of whether an alert is generated. The details include the vehicle registration number, the date and time that the image of the vehicle registration plate was captured, an identification of the camera that captured the image. The details may also include a list of users that were alerted at step 107. The system may also be arranged for sending pre-emptive alerts at step 109. In this embodiment, additional cameras are provided at the exits of the car parks. With particular reference to figure 6 of the drawings, the cameras at the exits of the car parks are arranged for capturing images of vehicle registration plates as the vehicles exit the car park. Step 109 comprises extracting the vehicle registration number from the captured image and automatically generating a list of vehicle registration numbers of interest. In the present case, the list of vehicles of interest consists of vehicle registration numbers that were captured by the camera located at the entrance of the car park and triggered an alert to at least one user when captured at the entrance, this information being extracted from the central database 19. The repository 15 then compares the vehicle registration number of the vehicle captured by the camera located at the car park exit with the vehicle registration numbers extracted from the central database 19. If a match is found then a pre-emptive alert is generated. The alert is then sent to users requesting pre-emptive alerts at times dependent upon the proximity of the user's premises to the car park at which the vehicle registration number was captured. In one embodiment, the repository calculates the expected arrival time of the vehicle at the user's premises and sends the alert when the vehicle is expected to arrive in the next 10 minutes. The method of operation of the system may include additional steps (not shown), such as receiving feedback from users regarding an alert that was sent to a user-interface device. For example, users may be provided with the option of disabling alerts and adding additional information to an alert, this additional information being included in the next alert sent to the user-interface device.

Claims

A system for monitoring a car park, the system comprising:

a camera located at or proximal to an entrance to the car park and arranged for capturing an image of a vehicle registration plate;

a repository arranged to receive the image from the camera, the repository comprising a processor arranged for identifying the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate, comparing the vehicle registration number to one or more lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in a memory and generating an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists; and,

one or more portable user-interface devices arranged to receive the alert.

A system as claimed in claim 1 , the system comprising a plurality of cameras for capturing images of vehicle registration plates, each camera being located at or proximal to an entrance of a respective car park when the system is installed.

A system as claimed in claim 2, wherein the one or more lists comprise a list of vehicle registration numbers that have been captured by at least two of said plurality of cameras within a pre-defined time frame

A system as claimed in claim any preceding claim, wherein the one or more lists comprise a list of vehicle registration plates known to be connected with crime.

A system as claimed in any preceding claim, where the one or more lists comprise a list of vehicle registration numbers specific to the camera.

A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the users comprise businesses and the one or more lists comprise a list of vehicle registration numbers associated with customers of value to the businesses.

7. A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the one or more users defines a first set of users and the system is arranged for alerting multiple set of users, each set of users being associated with at least one camera.

8. A system as claimed in claim 7, wherein receiving an image from a camera, the repository is arranged for identifying the set of users associated with the camera and communicating the alert to the identified set of users. 9. A system as claimed in claim 8, wherein the repository is arranged for carrying out the following steps in relation to each user within the identified set of users: compare the vehicle registration number to one or more user-specific lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in a memory, generate an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists, and instruct transmission of the alert to the user.

10. A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the user-interface device comprises a mobile telephone or a tablet computer.

1 1. A system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the mobile telephone or tablet computer is provided with a dedicated vehicle alert application.

12. A system as claimed in claim 1 1 , wherein the application is configured to enable the user to compile or edit the one or more of the lists.

13. A system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the system is arranged to transmit the alert to the portable user-interface devices in real-time. 14. A method for monitoring a car park, the method comprising the steps of:

(b) communicating the image to a repository;

(f) transmitting the alert to one or more portable user-interface devices. A method as claimed in claim 14, wherein the method is suitable for alerting multiple set of users, each set of users having an associated set of cameras, the method further comprising the steps of communicating an indication of the car park at which the image was captured to the repository, identifying the set of users associated with said car park and transmitting the alert to user-interface devices associated with said set of users.

A method as claimed in claim 15, wherein the one or more lists are user-specific and the method may comprises, for each user within the identified set of users, comparing the vehicle registration number to one or more user-specific lists of vehicle registration numbers stored in the memory, generating an alert if the vehicle registration number displayed on the vehicle registration plate matches a vehicle registration number belonging to at least one of the lists, and transmitting of the alert, if generated, to the user.

A method as claimed in any one of claims 14 to 16, further comprising the step of generating said one or more lists, this step being performed at least before step (b) above. 18. A method as claimed in any one of claims 14 to 17, wherein the alert is transmitted in real-time.

19. A method as claimed in any one of claims 14 to 18, wherein the alert is transmitted to a mobile telephone or tablet computer running a dedicated vehicle alert application.