Methods and systems for electronic payment for parking using autonomous position sensing

摘要

A method/system of wireless payment of parking fees for a vehicle, applicable to both open street and closed garage parking, wherein the user and checker experiences are enhanced relative to the prior art by a number of means, including: autonomous sensing of the user's/vehicle's location and allowing the user to correct the indicated location if required; enabling a handset to automatically sense the ID of the vehicle in which it is located; enabling rapid and facile enforcement by providing the Checker with information about the location, parking session status and other attributes of parked vehicles and displaying the information on a portable terminal in a manner facilitating rapid validation; and further facilitating the identification of vehicles with expired sessions by a method/system of RF interrogation involving RF tags located in/on the vehicles and the checking terminal querying the RF tags.

主权项

1. A method of payment for parking of a vehicle in an open street with a portable wireless communications device or a wireless communications device built into the vehicle's electronic system over a communications network comprising:
determining the identity of the vehicle by automatically sensing an identification device by the portable wireless communications device with a sensor located in the portable wireless communications device, wherein the identification device is located in the vehicle and wherein the identification device and portable wireless device are distinct devices and wherein determining the identity comprises using near field or short range wireless communications; determining the location of the vehicle using a satellite navigation system, the location determined by a processor; initiating a parking session via a transceiver with a parking application server, the parking session initiated by the processor; transmitting with the transceiver the location of the vehicle and the identity of the vehicle to the parking application server; allowing a user to input an alternative location different from the location determined by positioning system, wherein the user inputting an alternative location includes the user touching a user selected location on a touch sensitive screen or moving a cursor to a user selected location and pushing a button, wherein the user input only provides an alternative location for the parking session, and wherein the user input sets the alternative location as user's parking spot for the parking session and initiates the parking session.