Smart Parking Meter Integration for Real-Time Mobile Payment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing mobile parking payment applications lack real-time communication with actual parking meters, leading to inaccuracies and the potential for users to receive parking tickets despite payment, and duplicating infrastructure to enable this communication is costly and inefficient.
Innovation Solution
A system where a user's smartphone interacts with smart parking meters to facilitate digital transactions, providing real-time meter status and allowing purchases, reservations, and alerts, with integration through a central control computer and cloud server.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a mobile parking payment application is implemented without direct communication with parking meters, then users can pay for parking remotely, but the system cannot provide real-time confirmation and users may still receive parking tickets
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements real-time feedback by enabling bidirectional communication between the mobile application and the parking meter. When a user makes a payment, the meter receives the transaction data, updates its internal records, and sends confirmation back to the user's device. This closed-loop feedback mechanism ensures that payments are accurately reflected on the meter display and prevents false parking tickets.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a communication intermediary layer that bridges the mobile application and the parking meter infrastructure. This intermediary enables data exchange through standardized protocols, allowing the app to transmit payment information and receive status updates without requiring direct physical access to the meter, thus resolving the contradiction between remote operation and reliable confirmation.
2Reliability
If redundant infrastructure is added to duplicate parking meter monitoring functions for mobile app integration, then real-time communication capability is achieved, but installation cost and ongoing maintenance increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system enhances the existing parking meter's functionality to serve multiple purposes: traditional coin/bill acceptance, digital communication with mobile devices, remote diagnostics, and data logging. By making the meter universal and multi-functional, the patent avoids creating separate redundant infrastructure while achieving real-time communication capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The parking meter is equipped with self-service capabilities including automatic transaction processing, built-in communication modules for direct app interaction, and autonomous status monitoring. This eliminates the need for additional intermediary infrastructure as the meter independently handles all communication and monitoring functions required by the mobile application.
3Ease of operation
If conventional pay-by-phone applications are used without meter integration, then users can initiate parking transactions remotely, but the meter cannot display real-time status or confirmation to the user
Solution Approach 1:
The system establishes a real-time feedback channel between the parking meter and the user's mobile device. The meter continuously transmits status information including remaining time, payment confirmation, and availability state to the user's app, while the user can remotely control the meter functions. This bidirectional feedback eliminates information loss by keeping the user synchronized with the actual meter state.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds a digital communication dimension to the traditional parking meter system. By integrating wireless communication capabilities, the system transforms from a purely local, physical interaction model to a multi-dimensional model that includes remote digital interfaces, real-time data exchange, and cloud-based connectivity, thereby preserving all information across both physical and digital domains.
Data Source
AI summary
A parking meter system includes a plurality of parking space monitors, a central computer system networked with the plurality of parking space monitors, and a user computing device. Each of the parking space monitors includes 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, and camera coupled to the processor and aimed towards a parking space to be monitored. The user computing device is configured to transmit to a request for parking time, receive a purchase confirmation, and monitor a remaining purchased parking time which is synchronized to a parking timer countdown for a particular parking space where a user has parked that is being monitored by a particular one of the plurality of parking space monitors.