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(11) | EP 1 510 953 A1 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | System for handling the flow of vehicles |
| (57) The present invention is concerned with the management of parking spaces, and in
particular the handling of vehicles and their admission to a parking space for a predictable
and limited amount of time, i.e. during a meeting, a sports event such as a hockey
match or a cultural happening such as a concert. Upon registration via a scheduling
subsystem (2), an invitee or spectator receives an identification means from an identification
subsystem (3). The corresponding information is transmitted to an access control system
(4) for the handling of the invitee's or spectator's vehicle. An accounting subsystem
(5) further increases the level of automation and the productivity of an event organizer. |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The invention relates to the management of parking spaces comprising one or more individual parking lots, and in particular to the handling of vehicles and their admission to a parking space for a predictable and limited amount of time, i.e. during a sports event such as a hockey match, a cultural happening such as a concert, or a meeting such as a business conference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] Often enough, visitors or invitees coming to see a host, or spectators coming to see a sports or cultural event, do arrive on the premises (e.g. office, hospital, football stadium) by car, by bus or by another vehicle which is supposed to stay nearby during the duration of the meeting or event. Such vehicles therefore need a parking lot, and the more vehicles arrive at the same time, the more important is a parking space management system. In addition, if the parking space is public or shared between tenants in an office building, the refund of the parking fee to the visitor by the host is a manual process involving the presentation of the parking ticket by the visitor.
[0003] Systems such as the one from signal-Park (www.signalpark.com) can help guide a driver to a specific vacant parking lot and gives the operator of the parking space the ability to direct and track in real time the movement of vehicles through parking garages.
[0004] In the European Patent Application 03405358.7 which is incorporated herein for all purposes by way of reference, a system for handling the flow of visitors or clients temporarily admitted to some business premises such as an office building is disclosed. The costs arising in connection with the activities or consumption of resources by the visitor or client, such as his or her reception or the occupation of a conference room in connection with the visit, are forwarded to a "premises resources planning" or accounting system without any interaction of an additional person. To that purpose an accounting module or program is connected via a communication link to various subsystems dedicated to services such as announcement and reception of the visitor or conference room reservation.
[0005] A basic variant of the aforementioned system comprises the following four subsystems or "applications":
1. A visitor announcement application that enables a host in the building to announce visitors to the other subsystems via an electronic agenda of the host person and/or standard desktop applications, such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes.
2. A virtual reception desk where a visitor can identify himself and receive an entry badge without the need for administrative help from a traditional receptionist.
3. An in-house voice communication medium used to link the virtual reception desk automatically to the corresponding host when the visitor arrives.
4. An access control application consisting of card readers, door controllers and an access control rights administration system.
[0006] In a preferred embodiment, a car parking management system is preferentially included as another subsystem reporting to the same "premises resource planning" means. This allows an occupant of the premises to offer a smooth arrival to the external visitors or clients, and enables a transparent resource, i.e. car parking space, usage monitoring and corresponding cost allocation.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0007] It is therefore an objective of the invention to facilitate the management of and admission to a parking space in connection with scheduled events. These objectives are achieved by a system and method for handling the flow of vehicles according to the claims 1 and 7. Further preferred embodiments are evident from the dependent patent claims.
[0008] According to the invention, subsystems for scheduling the arrival of a vehicle, for providing identification means to a driver or a passenger of the vehicle, and for controlling the access to a parking space by way of the identification means are connected via a communication link. Upon scheduling of an arrival by a driver or a passenger of the vehicle himself, or by an inviting host or event organiser, the identification means is determined or delivered to the driver or a passenger, and the access control subsystem is informed in accordance therewith.
[0009] In a preferred variant of the invention, the scheduling subsystem is a visitor announcement application such as an event management tool or a conferencing scheduling tool that enables a host to announce or register the visitor in a corresponding electronic tool such as a meeting organizer or calendar. This process includes the indication of planned arrival and departure times. The electronic tool automatically reserves a parking lot for the visitor and forwards this information to the visitor's own calendaring software. The visitor announcement application represents a further step towards a fully automated organisation of meetings or conference events triggered by the host.
[0010] Alternatively, a spectator wishing to assist to an event such as a sports match or a concert, may himself proceed to a reservation or booking of seats or admission rights via a reservation application. The latter may involve mail, telephone or on-line, web-based reservation or transaction facilities.
[0011] If the means of transport chosen is a car, bus or other non-public vehicle supposed to wait for the driver during the event, the identification subsystem provides an identification means to the driver or a passenger of the vehicle. In a preferred variant of this step, an identification number or tag already assigned either to the vehicle, such as the registration plate number, or to the driver or passenger, such as a credit card number, is elected. This number is then to be communicated to the identification subsystem and registered correspondingly.
[0012] Alternatively, the identification subsystem creates itself an identification means, such as an alphanumeric code, a bar code, a ticket or a chip card, which is then forwarded to the visitor or spectator, preferably together with the locations and directions of the parking space. If the identification means is sent electronically, i.e. by email or SMS, the receiver may store it on an electronic identification device such as a handheld computer or mobile phone, or else proceed to printing the identification means in paper form. Preferably, this identification means serves as admission ticket to the event as well. Thus, the visitor or spectator will no longer have several tickets or badges to handle for one single meeting or spectacle.
[0013] The access control subsystem comprises means for identifying the vehicle or the participant, based preferably on infrared or near field radio (Bluetooth) communication with the electronic identification device, or based on contact free reading of admission tickets. In a preferred embodiment, the access control tool includes a parking guidance system for directing the vehicle to an empty parking lot.
[0014] In a further preferred embodiment, an accounting subsystem is connected to the communication link for the processing of all data relevant for invoicing in a post-parking phase. The consumed services, i.e. the occupation of a parking lot, can be paid for by the visitor himself, in which case a standalone parking meter is sufficient. However, if the host or an event organizer covers the cost for parking, corresponding information from the scheduling subsystem about reserved space or from the access control subsystem about actual occupation times is forwarded to the accounting subsystem to allocate costs to the right entity and hence contribute to an increased transparency of costs.
[0015] A main benefit of the invention resides in the fact that hosts or event organizers benefit from greater convenience and higher productivity, and in the fact that the efficiency of the parking space managing staff and the occupation of the parking space are also increased. The registering of visitors and spectators demands less human involvement due to an integration of several services, leading to higher accuracy, reduced delays and loss of information between process steps, responsibilities and systems.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0016] The subject matter of the invention will be explained in more detail in the following text with reference to preferred exemplary embodiments which are illustrated in the attached schematical drawing, in which:
Fig.1 shows a system for handling the admission of vehicles to a parking space.
[0017] The reference symbols used in the drawing, and their meanings, are listed in summary form in the list of reference symbols.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0018] Fig. 1 depicts the structure of a system for handling the flow of vehicles according to the invention. A communication link 1 represented by the thick horizontal line interconnects the following basic subsystems: a scheduling subsystem 2, an identification subsystem 3, an access control subsystem 4 and an accounting subsystem 5. The subsystems mentioned 2,3,4,5 need not be localised in one place but may themselves comprise several distributed data processing units and/or user interface devices.
[0019] According to the embodiment of Fig.1, a person interested or enabled to participate in an event connects to the scheduling application 2 or a corresponding web-server or interface 21 via his or her computer 6 and the Internet 61. The web-server 21 generates display control data such as HTML or XML code that is transmitted to and displayed on the said person's computer 6 which thus only requires a standard browser. Upon registration, the person is sent, by phone, post, weblink or email, a message to confirm his or her participation and to select a means of transport. Upon selecting car transportation, the visitor is offered various check-in choices by the identification subsystem 3. The latter proceeds as described above and assures communication to the parking access system 4 with respect to space reservation and confirmation.
[0020] Alternatively, the scheduling subsystem 2 can be an office tool for invitation and announcement of visitors or clients, and may be a software tool included on the computer of every potential host of an office building. Various tools of this kind are described in the aforementioned European Patent Application 03405358.7.
[0021] The access control subsystem 4 comprises a badge or card readers or other reading device 41 and a means of physically controlling the access to the parking space such as a door or a barrier 42. The thin lines represent communication channels within this subsystem. The access tool 4 is also responsible for the allocation of parking lots, the guidance of the identified vehicle to its allocated lot, the link of the parking meters to the exit allowance, operation of entry and exit barriers, video or CCTV surveillance and other security tasks.
[0022] The accounting subsystem 5 receives all relevant information related to the activity of or consumption of resources by the visitor from the other subsystems 2,3,4. As all the subsystems are connected via the communication link 1, the provision of the relevant data can be fully automated and assigned to the subsystems without the necessity for a person to enter data into an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
[0023] The communications link 1 itself can be conceived as a multitude of dedicated communication channels and/or a wire-based or wireless local area network (LAN) based on a common (IP) protocol. The data communication between the various subsystems is implemented using existing or dedicated application program interfaces (APIs) or existing standards for interfacing computer applications, such as e.g. Microsoft™ .COM, .DCOM, the common object request broker architecture (CORBA), simple object access protocol (SOAP), Java™ Remote Method Invocation (RMI) or SAP iDoc. The interfacing task involves a standardization of data structures and data field contents to enable link, integration and consolidation across various subsystems/applications.
LIST OF DESIGNATIONS
1. A system for handling the flow of vehicles temporarily admitted to a parking space,
comprising
- a scheduling subsystem (2) for scheduling the arrival and admission of a vehicle to the parking space,
- an identification subsystem (3) for providing an identification means to a driver or a passenger of the vehicle;
- an access control subsystem (4) for granting the vehicle access to the parking space in accordance with the identification means;
- a communication link (1) for information exchange between the abovementioned subsystems (2,3,4).
2. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that the scheduling subsystem (2) is a visitor announcement application for announcing
a visitor by a host.
3. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that the scheduling subsystem (2) is a reservation application for reserving admission
rights by a spectator.
4. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that the identification subsystem (3) elects an identification number already assigned
to the vehicle or to the driver or a passenger of the vehicle.
5. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that the identification subsystem (3) generates an identification means and transmits
it to the driver or a passenger of the vehicle.
6. The system according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that an accounting subsystem (5) is connected to the communication link (1) and capable
of receiving, from the subsystems (2,3,4), accounting information related to the parking
spaces usage by the vehicle.
7. A method of handling the flow of vehicles temporarily admitted to a parking space,
comprising the steps of
- establishing a communication link (1) for information exchange between a scheduling subsystem (2), an identification subsystem (3); and an access control subsystem (4);
- scheduling the arrival and admission of a vehicle to the parking space via the scheduling subsystem (2),
- providing an identification means to a driver or a passenger of the vehicle via the identification subsystem (3);
- granting the vehicle access to the parking space in accordance with the identification means via the access control subsystem (4).