A highway service area interchange area vehicle turn-back path charging and path identification method

Abstract

The application discloses a highway service area interworking area vehicle turn-back path charging and path identification method and belongs to the technical field of intelligent highway toll collection. In view of the fact that the existing ETC charging auditing system cannot adapt to new traffic scenes after the popularization of future interworking road networks, problems such as charging confusion, turn-back misjudgment and charging deviation will occur. The application is compatible with physical gantry and virtual gantry dual modes and adapts to ETC, mobile phone NFC, license plate non-inductive and other full-category media. The interworking area boundary is defined by relying on the gantry time sequence logic, various driving paths in the area are identified, and the same area round trip path is not limited and not charged. Misjudgment caused by the conflict between new and old rules is avoided through path classification marking, three traffic modes, i.e., in-area traffic, main line turn-back and normal stay, are distinguished through multiple verification, and the charging deviation in the interworking scene is eliminated. The application does not need to add new hardware, is compatible with software and hardware in both directions, is ahead of the adaptation of new interworking road network upgrading, fills the industry technology gap and has good engineering landing and popularization value.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the technical fields of intelligent toll collection for smart highways, ETC gantry time-series path recognition, and intelligent traffic path recognition. Specifically, it relates to an integrated intelligent management and control method that is adaptable to all types of highway service area interchanges and compatible with all types of highway toll media, enabling vehicle turnaround path recognition, unlimited trips without charges, intelligent trajectory correction, path classification and marking, and accurate calculation of mainline tolls. Background Technology

[0002] With the comprehensive advancement of digital upgrades and transformations of smart highways across China, the traditional, independent, and unconnected service area structure on both sides of highways is gradually being upgraded. The domestic highway network has now fully entered the planning, construction, and renovation phase of service area interchange structures. In the future, a large number of highway sections will gradually develop interconnected service area interchanges, including various new structures such as O-shaped ring interchanges, underpass tunnel interchanges, overpass ramp interchanges, and semi-connected interchanges. These will enable resource sharing between highway service areas in both directions, flexible vehicle direction changes, and rapid emergency response, greatly optimizing the service capacity of highway service areas and the overall network traffic efficiency.

[0003] Currently, the nationwide ETC tolling system, gantry path fitting algorithm, and traffic audit judgment rules for highways are all developed based on the traditional, non-interconnected, and independently operating old service area road network model. This model is adapted to the existing traffic logic where service areas cannot connect across areas or change direction internally. These existing technical rules are significantly lagging behind future new road network hardware upgrade models, failing to proactively adapt to the new scenario of service area interconnection that will soon be widely adopted, and also failing to cover the next generation of seamless mobile phone access. Once the new interconnected road network is deployed on a large scale in the future, the existing fixed rules will generate three major new pain points and technological blind spots in the industry, indicating a serious lack of forward-looking technology.

[0004] As interconnected highway networks become more widespread in the future, new problems may arise, such as rigid billing rules and unwarranted charges that disturb drivers. Under the current traditional service area model, highway service areas lack connecting passages, preventing vehicles from legally turning around or changing direction within the service area. However, with the future construction and operation of interconnected service area structures on both sides, drivers may encounter legitimate civilian scenarios such as taking the wrong ramp, getting lost in the service area, losing personal belongings, refueling in other service areas, and repeatedly confirming their routes, thus creating turning-around trajectories within the service area interconnection areas. Existing systems, lacking the ability to recognize interconnection scenarios, cannot correctly distinguish these paths from the main route, potentially classifying them as abnormal paths and forcibly triggering shortest or longest path fallback billing, leading to numerous unwarranted overcharges and incorrect charges, triggering large-scale driver complaints and road administration disputes.

[0005] As interconnected road networks become more widespread in the future, auditing systems may make indiscriminate and incorrect judgments, damaging the reputation of smart highway services. The existing auditing system is fully adapted to the logic of traditional, outdated road networks. However, with the full implementation of new service area interchange structures, internal turns within service area interchanges will become regular civilian traffic behavior. Traditional, fixed rules cannot adapt to this change and may still incorrectly mark normal turning and multiple round trips within interchanges as abnormal, leading to a large number of vehicles being stopped at highway exits, experiencing delays in manual checks, and being subsequently charged additional fees. This significantly reduces the intelligent service level and travel experience of future smart highways.

[0006] Future new modes of transportation will create blind spots in regulation, while the existing system has a narrow scope of protection. Traditional technical solutions are only designed for the traditional ETC vehicle toll collection mode and are not adapted to new toll collection methods such as mobile NFC contactless toll collection and license plate-linked mobile phone contactless toll collection, which are rapidly becoming more widespread and will be fully mainstream in the future. Currently, there is no issue of media avoidance due to the lack of interoperability scenarios; however, once the interconnected network becomes widespread in the future, the gaps in old rules will become a significant weakness, creating a dilemma where convenience for the public leads to loopholes in management, while strict management leads to public nuisance. Smart highway technology has an inherent lag in protection.

[0007] Meanwhile, there is currently no universal, advanced adaptation solution for billing path identification in future service area interconnection scenarios. Existing technical solutions or patent documents are mostly limited to the old road network model without interconnected service areas, and have not formed a unified adaptation logic for various new interconnection structures such as O-shaped ring interchanges, underpass tunnel interchanges, overpass ramp interchanges, and semi-connected interchanges. Moreover, most of them only adapt to the single passage medium of traditional ETC on-board equipment, and cannot cover the next generation of mainstream passage modes such as mobile phone NFC contactless passage and license plate binding contactless passage. The universality and protection integrity are extremely poor, and they do not meet the conditions for nationwide large-scale implementation and adaptation to future road network upgrades. The industry has not yet developed a mature and advanced technical solution that uses the boundary of the interchange area as the core of judgment, allows unlimited and uncharged routes within the area, is compatible with all types of passage mediums, and accurately identifies the main line turnaround passage mode. This technological gap in the industry urgently needs to be filled in advance. Summary of the Invention

[0008] The purpose of this invention is to address the shortcomings of the existing highway ETC billing and auditing system, such as poor adaptability, rigid rules, inability to adapt to future interconnected scenarios, high future misjudgment rate, inaccurate billing, incomplete coverage of toll media, and fixed management mode. It provides an intelligent, integrated solution that adapts to the structure of all future newly built and renovated highway service area interchanges, is compatible with both hardware and software, covers all types of toll media, covers all civilian scenarios, allows unlimited routes without billing, has zero misjudgment in route identification, accurately calculates mainline costs, eliminates loopholes circumvented by new mobile toll modes, and adapts to long-term parking delays. This solution proactively addresses six major new industry pain points that will arise after the widespread adoption of new interconnected toll networks: billing errors, damage to vehicle owner rights, mis-interception during audits, poor technical versatility, loss of mainline costs, and circumvention of control by new technology modes.

[0009] This invention breaks through the dual limitations of traditional single interconnection form and single passage medium, and is fully adaptable to all future newly built and renovated highway service area interconnection areas. It is also compatible with both physical gantry hardware recognition mode and backend virtual gantry pure software modeling upgrade mode, adapting to different renovation budgets and implementation conditions of highways in various provinces across the country. It can be pre-deployed and directly activated after the interconnection network is completed. Crucially, this invention breaks the limitation of traditional technology that only adapts to ETC on-board units, and is fully compatible with all existing and future highway free-flow passage modes, including traditional ETC microwave passage, mobile phone NFC contactless passage, mobile license plate contactless passage, and mobile phone password-free deduction passage. All gantry time-series trajectories and passage data generated by all passage media are incorporated into the unified management system of this invention.

[0010] This invention relies on the real-time collection of all gantry time-series data from the backend of the highway toll system to construct a multi-dimensional trajectory recognition logic, which fully covers all civilian scenarios such as single-way changes, partial detours, and multiple round trips in future service area interchanges. For all paths within the same service area interchange, the number of times is not limited, and they are uniformly excluded from the toll mileage, thus eliminating the problem of innocent overcharging after the widespread adoption of future interconnected road networks.

[0011] This invention establishes a dedicated route classification and marking system, pushing non-billing labels and intra-area passage signs to all routes within the service area interconnection zone, completely shielding the possible erroneous judgments caused by traditional fixed rules, and realizing seamless vehicle passage in future interconnection scenarios; at the same time, it abandons the rigid number of times limit to prevent loopholes, and adopts a precise identification logic of route area definition plus mainline backflow verification, only processing passage behavior that breaks through the boundary of the interconnection area and returns to the upstream mainline as the mainline turnaround mode, fully accommodating all reasonable round-trip operations of car owners within all service areas.

[0012] This invention incorporates an independent verification mechanism for duration thresholds, separating the determination of extended periods of rest, repair, and relaxation at service areas from the determination of route characteristics. These mechanisms ensure that neither interferes with nor affects the other, protecting drivers' legitimate right to rest while meeting the standardized management requirements of highway service areas. Simultaneously, the virtual gantry recognition relies on the dense network of ETC gantries along the national main lines for continuous verification, completely avoiding the risk of misjudgment caused by future traffic congestion and slow-moving traffic on the main lines, resulting in extremely high recognition accuracy.

[0013] Beneficial effects Compared with existing traditional high-speed tolling auditing technology, this invention has seven outstanding innovations and industry advancements.

[0014] First, it has extremely strong universal adaptability. This invention is not limited to a single O-type interchange, but fully covers all future new service area interchange structures such as tunnel interchanges, overpass interchanges, direct connection interchanges, and ring interchanges. It is the industry's first universal interchange path identification and billing adaptation solution, which can be fully adapted to all newly built and renovated interchange sections nationwide, and has extremely high commercialization value.

[0015] Secondly, it is highly user-friendly, proactively addressing future pain points for people's livelihoods. This invention does not limit the number of trips within the service area interconnection zone. Regardless of the number of trips, there will be no charges or misjudgments, perfectly aligning with real-world civilian scenarios such as drivers getting lost, taking the wrong route, searching for items, and refueling across service areas under the future interconnected road network. Furthermore, regardless of the number of trips within the same service area interconnection zone, it fundamentally avoids future issues such as unjustified charges and driver complaints.

[0016] Third, the dual-mode software and hardware approach allows for flexible deployment and adaptability to both new and existing road networks. It supports the upgrading and transformation of traditional physical gantry hardware, as well as the advance deployment of virtual modeling in pure back-end software. No on-site construction, no new hardware, and zero transformation costs are required. It can be pre-deployed in existing highway systems and take effect directly after the new interchange is built. Old highway systems can be quickly iterated and adapted to future scenarios.

[0017] Fourth, accurate path identification with zero false positives. Through a dedicated path marking mechanism, it completely distinguishes between service area travel paths and mainline turnaround paths in future interconnected scenarios, eliminating problems such as vehicle interception, manual verification, and post-event retrieval caused by a one-size-fits-all rule, and significantly improving the service level of future smart highways.

[0018] Fifth, accurate tolling balances the needs of both sides. It accurately identifies the unique traffic pattern that requires independent processing, namely, short-distance exits from the highway by going through interchange areas and reversing the flow of traffic on the main line. This avoids disturbing the public, being rigid, and unfairly affecting ordinary drivers. At the same time, it eliminates tolling deviations after the future interconnected network becomes widespread, taking into account both public services and the security of state-owned assets revenue. This invention abandons the outdated ideas of traditional frequency and time restrictions, and for the first time proposes a brand-new and advanced technical concept of unlimited non-billing based on the definition of service area interchange areas, targeting only the main line turnaround pattern.

[0019] Sixth, the system boasts strong stability and outstanding anti-interference capabilities. Relying on the continuous verification trajectory of the dense network of ETC gantries across the country, it is unaffected by mainline traffic jams, road construction slowdowns, or GPS signal loss in tunnels. There are no misjudgments or fallback billing errors, ensuring stable and reliable system operation and adaptability to various complex interconnected traffic scenarios in the future.

[0020] Seventh, full coverage across all media. This invention breaks through the limitation of traditional technologies that are only compatible with the single ETC passage mode, and includes all new-generation passage technologies such as mobile phone contactless passage, NFC contactless passage, and mobile license plate password-free passage within its protection scope. No new passage medium can bypass the path recognition, non-billing, and path marking logic of this invention, thus locking in the patent protection boundary in advance and leaving no loopholes for technical circumvention. Attached Figure Description

[0021] Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the topology of the interchange area of ​​the highway service area and the layout of physical and virtual gantries according to the present invention. Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the intelligent recognition process of the vehicle gantry time sequence turnaround mode of the present invention; Figure 3 is a module architecture diagram of the vehicle turnaround route billing and route identification system in the interchange area of ​​the highway service area of ​​the present invention. Specific Implementation

[0022] Example 1: Standard Single-Pass Interchange Reversing Scenario The highway service areas on both sides adopt an arbitrary interconnection structure to form service area interchange areas. A first virtual gantry and a second virtual gantry are deployed in the backend, or physical gantries are deployed on-site. Vehicles travel normally on the highway mainline, using any medium such as ETC on-board unit, mobile NFC, or mobile contactless passage to complete passage identification. Upon entering the service area interchange area, the vehicle completes the cross-direction changeover between the up and down directions, and the gantry timing sequence forms a complete interchange turnaround trajectory. If the system determines that the vehicle has remained within the service area interchange area throughout the entire journey and has not encroached on the upstream mainline, it is considered an in-area passage mode. The system automatically removes the turnaround mileage fee within the service area interchange area and only settles the actual highway mainline travel fee; simultaneously, an in-area passage sign is pushed to the toll platform, allowing the vehicle to pass through seamlessly and normally.

[0023] Example 2: Interchange partial detour turnaround scenario After entering the service area interchange, the driver, unfamiliar with the road conditions and making a brief mistake, drove the wrong way, creating a partially overlapping turnaround trajectory. The system accurately identifies this partial turnaround behavior as not leaving the service area interchange and not reversing the flow of traffic on the main road, determining it as a path within the interchange area. No charges are incurred for the partially overlapping turnaround section, no additional fees are deducted, and no audit warnings are triggered. This scenario is compatible with all vehicle-mounted and mobile access control media.

[0024] Example 3: Scenario of multiple round trips within the interchange area with no charges After entering the service area interchange area, drivers may make two, three, or more round trips within the interchange area due to legitimate reasons such as losing their mobile phones, wallets, or personal belongings; needing to repeatedly switch between service areas for charging, meals, or rest; or being a novice driver familiarizing themselves with the road conditions. The system verifies that all trajectories are confined to the current service area interchange area, with no reverse flow on the main road or short-distance exits from the highway, and determines that all paths are within the interchange area. The system does not charge for any of these multiple round trips, has no limit on the number of trips, and does not record any audit anomalies, fully reflecting real-world driving scenarios and is not limited by the type of vehicle access recognition medium.

[0025] Example 4: Virtual gantry for accurate identification of traffic jams and slow-moving traffic. Traffic congestion and slow-moving vehicles on the main highway significantly increase travel time. The system relies on full-coverage physical gantries along the main highway for continuity verification. As long as the main highway gantry passage sequence is complete and continuous, the system directly determines that the vehicle is always traveling on the main highway and will not misjudge the route as a service area interchange due to increased travel time. Interchange route determination is only activated when there is a gap in the main highway gantry data and the travel trajectory parameters match those of a service area interchange. This completely solves the industry's technical problem of misjudging traffic congestion and is compatible with various new and old traffic recognition technologies.

[0026] Example 5: Tunnel GPS Blind Spot Track Completion Scenario When a vehicle travels within the tunnel area of ​​a service area interchange, GPS signal loss and lack of satellite positioning records may occur. The backend system retrieves preset fixed parameters for the service area interchange area, such as tunnel length, path curvature, and standard travel time. Combined with the timestamps of the preceding and following mainline gantries and vehicle speed data, it automatically generates a complete and accurate vehicle travel trajectory, filling in data blind spots and eliminating the erroneous rule of the traditional system of using the shortest / longest path as a fallback for toll collection. This ensures accurate toll collection and is compatible with the trajectory completion requirements of ETC and mobile seamless passage.

[0027] Example 6: Service area long-term rest and maintenance delay adaptation scenario After vehicles enter the service area via the interchange, if they stay in the service area for more than 2 hours, 4 hours, or longer due to reasons such as overnight rest, vehicle breakdown repair, or long-distance rest, the system will separately judge the turnaround behavior in the service area interchange area and the service area overstay behavior. The turnaround section will still not be charged; it will only trigger the service area overstay registration management regulations separately and be classified as service area overstay mode. The two operations do not interfere with or conflict with each other, which protects the driver's right to rest and complies with the management regulations of highway service areas.

[0028] Example 7: Mainline Reverse Flow Pattern Recognition Scenario If a vehicle utilizes the service area interchange structure to bypass the interchange area, reverse its flow back to the upstream mainline of the highway, and exits from the preceding short-distance toll station, the system will classify this passage behavior as a mainline turnaround mode through mainline gantry sequence reverse gap verification. The rule of not charging within the service area will be cancelled, and normal tolling will be calculated based on the actual mainline mileage. This information will be entered into the system ledger, and this mode will be used regardless of the vehicle's toll medium.

[0029] Example 8: Billing Scenario for Direct Travel Through Interconnected Areas When a vehicle travels directly from the service area interchange to the opposite service area without making a U-turn, it will be charged according to the actual mileage traveled on the main highway, and the rule of not charging for routes within the service area will not apply. This scenario is independent of the direction-changing and main-line U-turn scenarios, clearly defining the scope of billing, preventing rule abuse, and further improving the system logic.

[0030] The above description is merely a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the scope of protection of the present invention. Any equivalent substitutions, optimizations, scenario expansions, or technical modifications adapted to new communication media made within the technical concept and core principles of the present invention shall be included within the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for calculating tolls and identifying routes for vehicle turnaround routes in highway service area interchanges, characterized in that, Includes the following steps: S1. Construct a full-area interconnection path identification system for the interconnection areas set up in highway service areas; the interconnection areas include various service area connection forms such as O-shaped ring interchanges, underpass tunnel interchanges, overpass ramp interchanges, direct connection interchanges, and semi-connection interchanges; the identification system supports two deployment modes, namely physical gantry deployment mode and back-end software virtual gantry modeling mode. The physical deployment mode is as follows: a first ETC physical gantry is set up in front of the entrance of the interconnection area, and a second ETC physical gantry is set up behind the exit of the interconnection area. Virtual modeling mode: In the highway tolling backend road network database, corresponding to the fixed points at the entrance and exit of the interconnected area, a first virtual gantry and a second virtual gantry with a unique identification number are established respectively, without the need to deploy any physical sensing hardware, capture equipment and antennas on site; S2. Real-time data collection of the mainline physical gantries and interconnected area physical / virtual gantries for the entire vehicle passage is conducted through the highway toll system backend, including passage sequence, device number, high-precision timestamp, and driving trajectory data, to generate a continuous and complete vehicle passage trajectory chain. This method is compatible with all types of highway toll identification media, covering traditional ETC vehicle tag passage, mobile NFC contactless passage, mobile license plate binding contactless passage, mobile automatic deduction passage without password, and other highway toll identification modes that generate passage records based on gantry time-series trajectory data. All gantry time-series trajectory data and passage records generated by all passage media are uniformly identified and billed according to steps S3 to S6 of this invention. The path identification and billing calculation are configured to output path classification labels and cost calculation results based on trajectory data, and the classification labels do not include the legal compliance characterization of vehicle passage behavior. S3. The system performs path recognition based on gantry timing logic, taking the geographical boundary of the interconnected area as the core judgment criterion. As long as the vehicle's driving trajectory is detected to be entirely within the same interconnected area and does not intrude into the upstream main line of the highway in reverse, regardless of whether it is a complete circular turnaround, a partial detour turnaround, or multiple cyclical back-and-forth turnsaround, it is determined to be a path within the interconnected area. S4. The system automatically marks all paths within the same interconnected area as non-tolled paths. During the final settlement of the vehicle's total toll, the system automatically removes all path mileage and corresponding fees within the interconnected area, and only calculates the actual valid driving costs on the main highway. Regardless of how many round trips occur within the same interconnected area, they are not included in the toll mileage. S5. The system pushes vehicle passage route data to the high-speed network toll platform. Among them, the path within the interconnection area is marked as a non-toll path and an in-area passage mark is added, while the main line path is marked as a toll path. The path within the interconnection area will not trigger the regular turnaround audit judgment. S6. The system performs three types of traffic mode differentiation and verification. By comparing the passage time with the preset threshold, verifying the integrity of the mainline gantry path, and identifying reverse driving at the boundary of the interchange area, the system distinguishes the vehicle passage trajectory into the intra-area passage mode, the service area stay mode, and the mainline turnaround mode, and adapts the corresponding billing and auditing rules according to the verification results.

2. The method for calculating toll and identifying the turnaround route of vehicles in highway service area interchanges according to claim 1, characterized in that: The path recognition of S3 covers the entire interconnected area scenario. When the gantry sequence shows a complete turnaround sequence of first gantry → second gantry → first gantry, or a partial detour turnaround sequence of first gantry → second gantry → second gantry, second gantry → first gantry → first gantry, or multiple sets of cyclical round-trip sequences, as long as the trajectory has not left the current interconnected area and has not reversed into the upstream mainline, it is all determined to be a path within the interconnected area and is exempt from toll and path marking is performed.

3. The method for calculating toll and identifying vehicle turnaround routes in highway service area interchanges according to claim 1, characterized in that: The passage time verification mechanism of S6 independently manages the lingering behavior in the interchange area. The system pre-stores standard passage time intervals for various interchange areas. The passage of vehicles in the interchange area is not affected by the passage time and is normally not charged. Vehicles that stay for extended periods due to normal reasons will only have their information recorded in the system logs and will be classified as being in a service area loitering mode. This will not change the billing results or trigger audit decisions.

4. The method for calculating toll and identifying vehicle turnaround routes in highway service area interchanges according to claim 1, characterized in that: When physical gantries are deployed on-site, the first ETC physical gantry is set at a position no less than 50 meters in front of the entrance to the interconnected area, and the second ETC physical gantry is set at a position no less than 50 meters behind the exit of the interconnected area, to ensure that the traffic trajectory identification in the interconnected area is unique and independent, and does not cause confusion with the regular driving trajectory of the main highway or generate data crosstalk.

5. The method for calculating toll and identifying vehicle turnaround routes in highway service area interchanges according to claim 1, characterized in that: There is no limit to the number of times a route can be taken within the same interconnected area. As long as the vehicle trajectory is limited to the current interconnected area and does not intrude into the upstream main line of the expressway in reverse, it will not be included in the toll mileage and will not trigger audit and accountability. The rules for each interconnected area are independent and cannot be reused. The system only includes the toll mileage for behaviors such as breaking the interconnection boundary, reversing the flow on the main line, and exiting the expressway short distances to avoid long-distance tolls and classifies them into the main line turnaround mode.

6. The method for calculating toll and identifying vehicle turnaround routes in highway service area interchanges according to claim 1, characterized in that: The virtual gantry relies on the timing data of the mainline gantry and the basic parameters of the road network to complete trajectory verification and judgment; when the timing of the mainline gantry is continuous and complete, it is directly determined that the vehicle is driving normally on the mainline; when the mainline gantry data is missing or interrupted, the system automatically fits a complete travel trajectory in combination with the road network model of the interchange area to make up for the lack of positioning data in tunnels and areas with weak signals.

7. A toll collection and route identification system for vehicle turnaround routes in highway service area interchanges, characterized in that, To implement the method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, comprising: Gantry data acquisition module: used to connect to the backend of the highway toll system, and collect the device number, passage timestamp, and time-series trajectory sequence of the mainline physical gantries and interconnected physical / virtual gantries; this module is compatible with various toll media such as ETC microwave recognition, mobile phone NFC induction recognition, and mobile terminal contactless license plate recognition gantry data acquisition formats; Interconnection Path Identification Module: Used to identify all path characteristics of complete turnarounds, partial detour turnarounds, and multiple looping round trips within interconnected areas; Billing and accounting module: used to batch remove all path mileage fees within the interconnected area and complete missing tracks in tunnel GPS blind spots; Path tagging module: Used to push exclusive path category tags, and paths within the interconnected area will not trigger regular turnaround audit judgments; Multi-dimensional path verification module: used for verification of passage duration, path integrity, and mainline reverse flow, outputting the results of three passage modes: passage within the area, service area stagnation, and mainline backtracking; Data storage and traceability module: used to permanently retain access records, overdue stay records, and billing and accounting records for interconnected areas.

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