TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to the field of toll collection systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and system for identifying a vehicle in a toll area, such as a toll road and toll parking yard.

BACKGROUND ART

"Electronic toll collection (E-Tolls) aims to eliminate the delay on toll roads by collecting tolls electronically. ETC determines whether the cars passing are enrolled in the program, alerts enforcers for those that are not, and electronically debits the accounts of registered car owners without requiring them to stop.

Automated vehicle identification (AVI) is the process of determining the identity of a vehicle subject to tolls. The majority of toll facilities record the passage of vehicles through a limited number of toll gates. At such facilities, the task is then to identify the vehicle in the gate area.

Most current AVI systems rely on radio -frequency identification, where an antenna at the toll gate communicates with a transponder on the vehicle via Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC). RFID tags have proved to have excellent accuracy, and can be read at highway speeds. The major disadvantage is the cost of equipping each vehicle with a transponder, which can be a major start-up expense, if paid by the toll agency, or a strong customer deterrent, if paid by the customer. To avoid the need for transponders, some systems ... use automatic number plate recognition. Here, a system of cameras captures images of vehicles passing through tolled areas, and the image of the number plate is extracted and used to identify the vehicle. This allows customers to use the facility without any advance interaction with the toll agency. The disadvantage is that fully automatic recognition has a significant error rate.

As cellular-phone use becomes more commonplace, some toll road management companies have turned to mobile phone apps to inexpensively automate and expedite paying tolls from the lanes. The app communicates in real time with the facility transaction processing system to identify and debit customer accounts or bill a major credit card."

(from

httpV/en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic toll collection#Automat ed vehicle identification)

In toll road charging, there is a preference for using RFID tags, as they are more reliable than, for example, decoding the vehicle number by OCR, since, for instance, the quality of a vehicle image depends on visibility, concealing the license plate by other vehicles, and so on. As such, users that use RFID tags usually are charged a reduced fee. However, RFID tags have also some drawbacks. One drawback of RFID tags is that they use a battery as power source, and batteries exhaust and thereby need to be replaced occasionally. Furthermore, RFID tags are dedicated devices for their specific purpose, and as such, a user has to purchase an RFID tag especially for the purpose of receiving the reduced fee on a toll road and the like.

Furthermore, using RFID tags and vehicle plate decoding, the user has no indication of being charged, until the bill thereof arrives to his mail box.

As such, there is a long felt need for providing a substitute for RFID tags.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a solution to the above-mentioned and other problems of the prior art.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a method for identifying a vehicle in a toll road, a toll parking yard, and the like, the method comprises the steps of

- maintaining in a database (24) information of an account, the information comprising an identity (12) of a vehicle (10) and least one cellular telephone number associated with the vehicle (10);

- upon detecting the vehicle (10) by a toll gate reader (14), instructing each of the at least one cellular telephones (16) to detect a current geographical location thereof via a geographical positioning agent (28) thereof;

- if according to the detected geographical location(s) at least one of the cellular telephones is present near the toll gate, debiting the account by a first toll, otherwise debiting the vehicle by a second toll,

thereby (a) sparing the need of an RFID tag, (b) sparing the need of activation of a positioning agent (28) of the cellular telephones by a driver thereof, (c) sparing the need of permanent operation of a positioning agent (28) of the at least one cellular telephone.

The positioning agent may be based on a GPS component, a cellular-based locating component, and so on.

Preferably, the first toll is less than the second toll. In another aspect, the present invention is directed to a system (10) for identifying a vehicle in a toll road, a toll parking yard, and the like, the system comprises the stops of

- a database (24) storing an account comprising an identity (12) of a vehicle (10) and at least one cellular telephone (16) number associated with the vehicle (10), wherein each of the at least one cellular telephone (16) is coupled with a positioning agent (28);

- a server (22) of a toll road company, the server having access to the database (24);

- an agent (30) operating in each of the at least one cellular telephone (16), for (a) activating and deactivating a positioning agent (30) thereof upon a request from the server (22), (b) instructing the positioning agent (30) to query its geographical position, (c) sending the geographical position to the server (22);

- a software module (32) operating at the server (22), the software module being adapted to: (a) upon receiving the identity of a vehicle passing through a toll gate (18), sending an instruction to each of the agents (30) to query a position of a cellular telephone (16) thereof; (b) charging by a first toll the vehicle account if at least one of the cellular telephones is present near the toll gate (18), otherwise charging the vehicle by a second toll; and

- a communication channel between the agent and the server (22). The communication channel may be carried out via wide area network(s) such as cellular network(s), the Internet, and so on. The identity of a vehicle may be obtained by photographing an image of the vehicle's identity plate, and decoding the identity by an OCR facility, by an RFID tag present on the vehicle (10), and so on. The reference numbers have been used to point out elements in the embodiments described and illustrated herein, in order to facilitate the understanding of the invention. They are meant to be merely illustrative, and not limiting. Also, the foregoing embodiments of the invention have been described and illustrated in conjunction with systems and methods thereof, which are meant to be merely illustrative, and not limiting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Preferred embodiments, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention are described herein in conjunction with the following drawings :

Fig. 1 schematically illustrates an operation of a toll road charging system, according to one embodiment of the invention. Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a toll road charging process, according to one embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of a toll collecting system, according to one embodiment of the invention. It should be understood that the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

The present invention will be understood from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments ("best mode"), which are meant to be descriptive and not limiting. For the sake of brevity, some well-known features, methods, systems, procedures, components, circuits, and so on, are not described in detail.

Fig. 1 schematically illustrates an operation of a toll road charging system, according to one embodiment of the invention.

The system uses a cellular telephone 16 coupled with a geographical locating system, such as a GPS agent or cellular- based positioning system such as based on triangulation of cellular base stations.

The system also makes use of a database 24, which inter alia associates a vehicle's license number with one or more cellular telephones 16. The database may also store the geographical locations of each of the toll gates of the toll road, accounts (each of one or more vehicles), and so on.

At the first step, which is marked in the figure as "A", when vehicle 10 riding on toll road 26 approaches a toll gate 18, camera 14 of the toll gate takes an image of the vehicle's license plate 12, and the vehicle's license number is decoded from the taken image by an OCR component. At the second step, which is marked in the figure as "B", the vehicle's license number and the identity or geographical location of the toll gate is sent to remote server 22 of the toll road company via wide area network(s) 20, such as cellular network(s), and the Internet.

At the next step, which is marked in the figure as "C", server 22 of the toll road company checks whether the license number of vehicle 10 is registered in database 24.

At the next step, which is marked in the figure as "D", if the vehicle is registered in the database, then the server sends (via the network(s) 20) to each of the cellular telephones 16 associated with the vehicle 10 an instruction to query the current geographical location of the cellular telephone.

At the next step, which is marked in the figure as "E", the geographical location information (e.g., coordinates) is sent (via network(s) 20) to the server by each of the cellular telephones 16 associated with the vehicle.

Assuming geographical location of one of the cellular telephones associated with vehicle 10 is at toll gate 18, the vehicle's account is charged a special fee! otherwise the vehicle is charged a regular fee, which naturally is higher than the special fee.

It should be noted that the operation of the GPS component of the cellular telephone consumes an increased amount of power in comparison to regular use. As a result, the GPS agent cannot be turned on permanently. The solution of the present invention allows turning on the GPS agent only when the geographical location of the cellular telephone is acquired, and afterwards is turned off, thereby sparing the power consumption. Of course, if the GPS application of the cellular telephone (such as Waze), is active, the GPS agent need not be turned on and off.

Alternatively, the user may turn on the GPS component before entering the toll road, and turn it off after exiting the toll road! however, such a solution is cumbersome, and distracts the user's attention from driving.

As such, the solution presented in Fig. 1 is transparent to the driver, and therefore does not distract his attention while driving, which means that it doesn't put the driver in jeopardy.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a toll road charging process, according to one embodiment of the invention.

At block 201, a user registers a new account for the toll road. The account may comprise a license number of one or more vehicles, wherein each of the vehicles may comprise one or more cellular telephones numbers associated with the vehicle.

At block 202, which occurs when a vehicle approaches a toll gate, the vehicle license number is identified, e.g., by taking a photo thereof and decoding the vehicle's license number by OCR technology, an RFID tag thereof, etc. From block 203, if the vehicle is not registered in the data base, the flow continues to block 206 in which the vehicle is charged a special fee! otherwise, the flow continues with block 204. In block 204, the cellular telephones associated with the vehicle are instructed by the toll road company to query their geographical location (e.g., coordinates). The instruction is sent via wide area network(s) such as a cellular network(s) and the Internet. From block 205, if the geographical location of one of the cellular telephones associated with the vehicle is at the toll gate, then the flow continues with block 207 in which the vehicle's account is charged a reduced fee! otherwise, the flow continues with block 206, wherein the vehicle is charged a regular fee, which normally is higher than the special fee.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of a toll charging system, according to one embodiment of the invention.

The system comprises a database 24, maintained by a toll gate company. The database associates a vehicle number 12 (" 123-456-789") with cellular telephones 16a ("77-662-645"), 16b ("63-444-654") and 16c ("56-223-556").

Each cellular telephone 16a, 16b and 16c comprises a geographical positioning agent 28, for positioning the current geographical location of the cellular telephone thereof. In addition, each cellular telephone comprises an agent

30 (e.g., a software application, computer code and hardware, and so on), in communication with a server 22 of the toll road company, which has an access 34 to database 24.

Each cellular telephone is in communication 36 with server 22, via networks(s) such as a cellular network and the Internet.

As described in the description of Fig. 1, when toll gate reader 18 detects a vehicle, it sends its license number or any other identification information to server 22.

Server 22 checks via software module 32 whether the vehicle number is registered in database 24, and if it is registered, it sends to agent 30 of each of the cellular telephones 16 (through communication channel 36) an instruction to query its current location by the geographical positioning agent 28. The geographical location information (e.g., coordinates) is sent to server 22.

Server 22 employs software module 32 for comparing the geographical location of each of the cellular telephones with the geographical location of the toll gate, and if the geographical location of a cellular telephone corresponds to the geographical location of the toll gate, the vehicle's account is charged a special fee, otherwise the vehicle is charged a regular fee.

It should be noted that the information of the location of each toll gate may be stored either at the server's side or at the cellular telephone side. In order to avoid the need to permanently execute the agent 30 of each of the cellular telephones, the server 22 may send its instruction to a cellular telephone 16 to query its position via an SMS message. The cellular telephone may also return the queried information in this manner.

Since there may be a delay between a request to query the geographical position of a cellular telephone, the queried geographical position does not have to be exactly at the toll gate in order to determine a reduced fee, but can be nearby, e.g., a few hundred meters from the toll gate.

Although the description and figures herein are directed to a toll road, it should be noted that the invention is directed to any toll area, including a toll road, and a toll parking yard, i.e., a parking yard in which the number of the vehicle parking therein is identified by automatic means such as OCR reader, at the entrance thereof.

In the figures and/or description herein, the following reference numerals (Reference Signs List) have been mentioned: ^■ numeral 10 denotes a vehicle travelling on a toll road 26!

- numeral 12 denotes a vehicle license plate!

- numeral 14 denotes a toll gate reader, such as including a camera coupled with OCR function!

^■ each of numerals 16, 16a, 16b, and 16c denotes a cellular telephone!

- numeral 18 denotes a toll gate on toll road 26;

- numeral 20 denotes a wide area network such as a cellular network and the Internet;

- numeral 22 denotes a server of the toll road company! ^■ numeral 24 denotes a database for associating a vehicle to one or more cellular telephones, accounting, and so on;

- numeral 26 denotes a toll road;

- numeral 28 denotes a geographical positioning agent, such as a GPS agent, a cellular positioning agent, and so on;

■ numeral 30 denotes an agent of the toll connection system, which operates on a cellular telephone!

- numeral 32 denotes a software module operated by server 22, for comparing the geographical location of the cellular telephones with the geographical location of the toll gate! and

- numerals 201 to 207 are steps of a toll charging process. In the description herein, the following acronyms have been mentioned:

. GPS, Global Positioning System;

. OCR, Optical Character Recognition; and

. RFID, Radio Frequency Identification! and

. SMS, Short Message Service.

The foregoing description and illustrations of the embodiments of the invention has been presented for the purposes of illustration. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the above description in any form.

Any term that has been defined above and used in the claims, should to be interpreted according to this definition.

The reference numbers in the claims are not a part of the claims, but rather used for facilitating the reading thereof. These reference numbers should not be interpreted as limiting the claims in any form.