Parking meter system
AssigneeMunicipal Parking Services, Inc.
InventorsThomas G. Hudson, Joseph M. Caldwell, Richard C. Gage
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A parking enforcement system can include a weather resistant housing, a processor disposed inside of the housing, a memory disposed inside of the housing and coupled to the processor, a network interface disposed in the housing and coupled to the processor, a first camera disposed in the housing and facing outward towards a first parking space. The processor can be configured to recognize when a vehicle first occupies the first parking space and determine a classification for the vehicle.
Claims28
A method of monitoring and managing vehicle parking in a parking facility, the parking facility including an entrance, an exit and a plurality of individual parking spaces, wherein vehicles pass through the entrance to park in one of the plurality of parking spaces and pass through the exit to leave the parking facility, wherein the parking facility has one or more parking rules, wherein the parking facility is entered by a plurality of vehicles, including one or more vehicles that comply with the one or more parking rules and one or more vehicles that commit a parking violation by not complying with the one or more parking rules, the method comprising:
- capturing image data automatically with a first camera of a vehicle passing through the entrance, the first camera being mounted within a line of sight of the entrance;
- transmitting automatically to a remote networked computer system the captured image data of the vehicle passing through the entrance;
- recording automatically a time of entry for the vehicle as it passes through the entrance;
- determining an identification of the vehicle that passed through the entrance via an automated character recognition analysis of the image data captured with the first camera, where the characters recognized correspond to characters on a vehicle license plate;
- capturing image data automatically with a second camera of the vehicle passing through the exit, the second camera being mounted within a line of sight of the exit;
- transmitting automatically to the remote networked computer system the captured image data of the vehicle passing through the exit;
- recording automatically a time of exit for the vehicle exiting the parking facility;
- determining an identification of the vehicle that passed through the exit via an automated character recognition analysis of the image data captured with the second camera;
- determining automatically whether a parking violation has occurred by the vehicle;
- and
- generating a parking violation notice automatically by the remote networked computer system that is populated with at least the characters on the vehicle license plate determined in the step of determining the identification of the vehicle that passed through the entrance, the time of entry for the vehicle recorded in the step of recording automatically the time of entry for the vehicle as it passes through the entrance, and an image of the vehicle based on image data captured at the parking facility.
A method of generating a parking violation notice for a parking facility, the parking facility having an entrance, an exit and a plurality of individual parking spaces, wherein vehicles pass through the entrance to park in one of the plurality of parking spaces and pass through the exit to leave the parking facility, wherein the parking facility has one or more parking rules, wherein the parking facility is entered by a plurality of vehicles, including one or more vehicles that comply with the one or more parking rules and one or more vehicles that commit a parking violation by not complying with the one or more parking rules, the method comprising:
- using an entry camera installed within a line of sight of the entrance to automatically capture image data of a vehicle entering the parking facility, the entry camera being communicatively coupled to a communication network;
- recording automatically a time of entry for the vehicle;
- transmitting automatically the captured image data of the vehicle entering the parking facility and the time of entry over the communication network to a remote networked computer system;
- determining automatically an identification of the vehicle entering the parking facility including using a first license plate reading camera to perform a license plate character recognition of a plurality of characters on a license plate on the vehicle using captured image data of the vehicle entering the parking facility;
- using an exit camera installed within a line of sight of the exit to automatically capture image data of the vehicle exiting the parking facility, the exit camera being communicatively coupled to the communication network;
- recording automatically a time of exit for the vehicle exiting the parking facility;
- transmitting automatically the captured image data of the vehicle exiting the parking facility and the time of exit over the communication network to the remote networked computer system;
- determining automatically an identification of the vehicle exiting the parking facility, including using a second license plate reading camera to perform a license plate number recognition of a plurality of characters on a license plate on the vehicle using captured image data of the vehicle exiting the parking facility;
- determining automatically whether a parking violation has occurred by the vehicle;
- and
- generating automatically by the remote networked computer system a parking violation notice that is populated with at least the license plate number for the vehicle determined in the step of determining automatically the identification of the vehicle entering the parking facility, the time of entry for the vehicle recorded in the step of recording automatically the time of entry for the vehicle, and an image of the vehicle based on image data captured at the parking facility.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.