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US 11,686,585 B2Granted
Method and apparatus for improved toll-booth vehicle handling
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorRaghu Prabhudeva
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system comprising a processor configured to advise a vehicle occupant of an advisable route through a tollbooth determined based on tollbooth traffic, responsive to identifying a vehicle as being within a threshold distance of a tollbooth. The processor is also configured to offer an option for toll prepayment responsive to the advisable route corresponding to a prepaid toll lane.
Claims20
A system comprising:
- a processor configured to:
- receive data from a first vehicle indicating vehicle movement in a predefined proximity to a toll booth, the data including coordinates indicating a first lane of the toll booth in which the first vehicle is traveling and movement data indicating how far the first vehicle has moved within the lane, after passing an initial location within a predefined distance of the toll booth;
- determine a count of vehicles in the first lane based on the movement data indicating one or more movement events corresponding to the first vehicle traveling a distance correlated to a vehicle length and subsequently stopping, prior to exiting the toll booth;
- determine that a second vehicle has reached a predefined location for providing a toll booth lane recommendation;
- responsive to there being at least one lane for which the count of vehicles is below a threshold, transmit a recommendation to the second vehicle to use one of the at least one lanes, including offer of an option for toll prepayment responsive to the at least one lane corresponding to a prepaid toll lane;
- and
- responsive to there being no lanes for which the count of vehicles is below the threshold, transmit the offer of the option for toll prepayment to the second vehicle, including identification of a recommended lane to which prepayment corresponds.
4 more elements
A method comprising:
- receiving data from a first vehicle indicating vehicle movement in a predefined proximity to a toll booth, the data including coordinates indicating a first lane of the toll booth in which the first vehicle is traveling and movement data indicating how far the first vehicle has moved within the lane, after passing an initial location within a predefined distance of the toll booth;
- determining a count of vehicles in the first lane based on the movement data indicating one or more movement events corresponding to the first vehicle traveling a distance correlated to a vehicle length and subsequently stopping, prior to exiting the toll booth;
- determining that a second vehicle has reached a predefined location for providing a toll booth lane recommendation;
- responsive to there being at least one lane for which the count of vehicles is below a threshold, transmitting a recommendation to the second vehicle to use one of the at least one lanes, including offer of an option for toll prepayment responsive to the at least one lane corresponding to a prepaid toll lane;
- and
- responsive to there being no lanes for which the count of vehicles is below the threshold, transmitting the offer of the option for toll prepayment to the second vehicle, including identification of a recommended lane to which prepayment corresponds.
3 more elements
A non-transitory storage medium, storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
- receiving data from a first vehicle indicating vehicle movement in a predefined proximity to a toll booth, the data including coordinates indicating a first lane of the toll booth in which the first vehicle is traveling and movement data indicating how far the first vehicle has moved within the lane, after passing an initial location within a predefined distance of the toll booth;
- determining a count of vehicles in the first lane based on the movement data indicating one or more movement events corresponding to the first vehicle traveling a distance correlated to a vehicle length and subsequently stopping, prior to exiting the toll booth;
- determining that a second vehicle has reached a predefined location for providing a toll booth lane recommendation;
- responsive to there being at least one lane for which the count of vehicles is below a threshold, transmitting a recommendation to the second vehicle to use one of the at least one lanes, including offer of an option for toll prepayment responsive to the at least one lane corresponding to a prepaid toll lane;
- and
- responsive to there being no lanes for which the count of vehicles is below the threshold, transmitting the offer of the option for toll prepayment to the second vehicle, including identification of a recommended lane to which prepayment corresponds.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.