Authenticated Vehicular Parking and Parked Vehicle Identifier System Description of the Project
Vehicle parking has become one of the serious issues in terms of vehicular traffic management in any city around the world. The main reason behind this is the unavailability of the centralized vehicular parking system for a particular city across the globe. The main intention of the current system lies not only in the fact of providing an integrated vehicular parking system for a particular city, but also to provide an convenient service to the end user to locate their own parked vehicle from any corner of that particular city. These types of services would also be helpful in vehicular trafficking and prevention of theft and misuse of the vehicle. The intention of these services are not confined into finding a slot for parking the vehicle, locating it from any corner of the city, but to extend these services to provide an integrated approach towards various other services such as toll collection system and the vehicular trafficking. All the existing system around the globe has any one of the following drawback in handling the vehicular parking services. Those drawbacks includes the,

1. Deployment of extensive man power in assisting the process of the parking system which include from the provision of token till allocating the parking slot.

2. Absence of the integrated vehicular parking service which could be a serious drawback with respect to the convenience of the user in finding the parking slot with ease and locating their parked vehicle.

3. Authorization of any individual driving the vehicle in and out of the parking bay
So due to the above mentioned drawbacks and with increase in vehicular traffic throughout the world, the need for integrated vehicular parking service arises. The main functioning rendered by this particular system can be categorized into four different aspects as follows,

1. Reduction in the traffic congestion in a city that mainly happens due to the vehicles searching for their parking slot.

2. Prevention of the misuse and theft of the vehicle by any unauthorized individual.

3. Rendering a service to the end user that would assist them to locate their parked vehicle from any corner of the city.

4. Enabling a parking slot finder cum parked vehicle locator service on a city basis that could assist in integrating it with some other additional services like toll collection, vehicular trafficking.

The main factor that leads to the design and implementation consideration of the proposed vehicular parking and parked vehicle identifier system is as follows,

1. The main motivation behind this system is to address the unavailability of an integrated vehicular parking service on city basis and locating the parked vehicle only by its respective authorized user.

2. A centralized service would be helpful even in monitoring the vehicular movement in and around the parking bays and the city as well, there by detecting some of the suspicious movement of vehicle in a particular city and preventing their misuse or theft.

3. Automated billing and payment service and the reduction in the man power employed to assist the entire parking service also serves as the motivation behind this system.
Proposed System:

The main aim of the authenticated vehicular parking and parked vehicle identifier system is to find a suitable way for a vehicle to be parked as well as locate the parked vehicle in a centralized fashion for a particular city, to track the movement of vehicle in and out of the parking bay there by reducing the misuse of the vehicle by unknown individuals and prevention of theft of any vehicle (after the vehicle has been parked). The current mechanisms involve man power to a greater extent to generate token for the particular vehicle that needs to be parked and organizing the parking slot for the vehicles to be parked. Mainly the current system, tries to resolve the parking slot conflicts by issuing the token with the parking slot in hand to the user when the vehicle enters the bay. This creates a huge waiting time for a particular user to obtain his token for identifying their parking slot. To avoid these problems and to identify the parked vehicle (from any part of city, only by its authorized user), a solution comprising of the mobile of the particular user is proposed. This also would help in reducing the manual work involved in the entire process and the mobile interface would provide a convenient way to identify the parking slot while the vehicle enters the parking bay and subsequently locating the parked vehicles.

The architecture of the system could be described in three tiers. The first tier namely the interaction tier functions efficiently with the user mobile that is registered prior to the configuration of the system. The main intention of this tier is to have an interaction of the user with the integrated parking system conveniently using the mobile interface. There is an additional validation being performed in this tier. This is achieved as the proposed service

would interact only with the officially registered mobiles of any individuals (the owners of the vehicles). The Vehicular on board unit is also the part of this tier as the VBU is recognized when the vehicle enters and exits the parking bay. The second tier act as an routing interface as it just routes the required information between the user mobile and the master repository of the authenticated vehicular parking and parked vehicle identifier system. The third tier is the heart of this system. It is the master repository that allocates the empty parking slot through Parking Slot Code (PSC) to the end user and provides the Unique Parked Vehicle Identification Number (UPVIN) to the user. It performs all the trafficking of the vehicle in and out of the parking bay and the parked vehicle locator services.

Step 1: Entry Phase. When the user rides the vehicle and enters the parking bay the VBU is recognized by the base station in the parking bay. Then at the terminal, user is asked for the registration number. The necessity to be asked for the registration number at the terminal is as follows. The VBU id may have been associated with the multiple registration number of the user. This is to attribute for the blood relationship of the primary owner of the vehicle or user's friends circle. This phase is followed by the validation of the data, the registration number with the VBU in the validation phase. The functional flow of this phase is as follows,

1. If any vehicle enters the parking bay, the VBU is recognized at the entrance of the parking bay itself.

2. The name(s) of the owners with respect to the recognized VBU is retrieved from the master repository.

3. The owner of the vehicle (or who drives the vehicle) is asked to provide the registration number at the entrance of the parking bay.

4. If the registration number provided by the user at the entrance of the parking bay matches with one of the registration numbers that is retrieved from the master repository (the list of owners), the user is allowed to proceed in as the validation is said to have completed and subsequent actions to park the vehicle are performed.

5. If the validation fails, the parking services thereafter fails.
Step 2: Validation Phase. Once the unique registration number is provided at the terminal, with the help of the recognized VBU, the mobile number of the user is retrieved from the master repository and the UPVIN (7 digits, for example like 4615452) is sent to the corresponding mobile of the user. Along with the UPVIN the Parking Slot Code (PSC - 7 digits) is sent. PSC looks like 2LS1023 - it means First MSB stands for the Floor (Second Floor), second bit the Wing left / right (Left wing), the next two bit to identify the slot (Slot -

1) and the last three bits for the Parking slot number (No. 23). The subsequent Updation of the UPVIN and the PSC is made at the back end - master repository with changing of the status of the vehicle to PARKED. Also along with the PSC and the UPVIN, the building id is also sent. This is required for the informing the user about the building in which they have to park their vehicle at the slot provided to him / her as PSC. There might be multiple building at the same parking bay. So to avoid the confusion about the selection of the parking bay, this id is utilized. The building id is seven digits would look like AIRP0002, in which first three digit tells the location such as airport, mall, library etc., (here AIRF indicated Airport), and the next four digit represents the building number. If the vehicle enters the building (bay) which is full already, this building id helps in suggesting the immediate next building id available for parking. This phase is also used for parking slot updation process (after vehicle parking) as follows,

1. If a vehicle enters the parking slot, the VBU is recognized at the slot.

2. The building id and the parking slot information is then retrieved from the parking slot warehouse (parking slot warehouse has list of building id's and PSC along with its current status) present in the tier 3 master repository.

3. If the VBU recognized at the parking slot matches with that of the VBU retrieved from the parking slot warehouse i.e., The check is made that the vehicle is parked only in the allotted parking space by the master repository, thus updating the parking slot warehouse, then the status of the vehicle in VBU warehouse (Contains VBU, Registration number of owners, mobile numbers, PSC and UPVIN) is made as PARKED.

4. Also the vehicle warehouse which contains the VBU, mobile of the users associated directly one to one with the VBU warehouse is updated with the PSC, UPVIN and the building id.

5. If the validation fails, then the vehicle is said to have parked in the wrong position and the user is alerted regarding the same and the Parking Slot Code message is again sent to the user mobile.
Step 3: Locator Phase. Once the user needs the slot of the parked vehicle, the user sends from their mobile which is also the one of officially registered mobile, the UPVIN to the base station. It then retrieves the information of the Parking Slot and the PSC to the same mobile, thus helping the user to locate the parked vehicle. If the UPVIN comes from any unknown mobile then the patrol and the owner of the vehicle could be alerted. The functional flow of this phase is as follows,

1. If a PSC Requests comes from users mobile with the UPVIN, the PSC is retrieved along with the building id and the VBU parked in that slot with the help of the UPVIN provided from the parking slot warehouse.

2. The list of owners with their registration number is therefore retrieved from the VBU warehouse with the help of the VBU id retrieved previously when the PSC request was originated.

3. Also the mobile number of the owners is also retrieved using the registration number retrieved. If the mobile number from which the request originated matches with one of the retrieved mobile number i.e., a check is performed to confirm if only the authorized user is requesting for Parking Slot Code (PSC), then the Parking slot code along with the building id is messaged to the requested mobile.

4. If the validation of the mobile number fails, then the illegal access message is sent to all the mobiles of the corresponding owner, thus alerting about the leaked Unique Parked Vehicle Identification Number (UPVIN) to the end user. This could also be considered as an issue concerning about the security.

Step 4: Exit Phase. Once the user slots the parked vehicle, the user then drives the vehicle out of the parking bay. While exiting the parking bay, the user is again requested for the unique registration number, where the user is validated once again for the ownership of the vehicle and the billing for the same is made by calculating the period of stay of the vehicle in the parking bay. One further enhancement to the system would be the automatic linking of the registration number with the financial institution account of that user, so that the instant debit of the money for parking charges could be made. Once the payment is made and the base station recognizes that the VBU departs from the parking bay, the master repository is updated with the removal of the UPVIN and the PSC from the same, thus changing the status of the vehicle to UNPARKED. The functional flow of this phase is as follows,

1. If a vehicle exits the parking slot, the VBU is recognized first at the parking slot itself.
2. Similarly, the vehicle is recognized while exiting the parking bay.
3. The list of owners with their registration number is therefore retrieved from the VBU warehouse with the help of the VBU id recognized.
4. The user (the driver who drives the vehicle out of the bay) is requested with the registration number and the UPVIN at the exit of the bay and the UPVIN is also retrieved from the VBU warehouse of master repository.

5. If the registration number provided by the user matches with the list of owners retrieved previously and the UPVIN code provided also matches, the user is allowed to pay the bill proceed out of the bay and the parking slot warehouse is emptied for that particular PSC and the VBU status of the VBU and the vehicle Warehouse is made UNPARKED by removal of building id and PSC.

6. If the validation fails, then the illegal access message is sent to all the mobiles of the corresponding owner, thus alerting about the leaked UPVIN to the end user. Additional Service - Toll Collection. When the user rides the vehicle and enters the
entrance of the toll collection unit the VBU is recognized by the base station in the toll plaza. Then at the toll collection terminal, the user is asked for registration number. The necessity to be asked for the registration number at the terminal is as follows. The VBU id may have been associated with the multiple registration number of the user. This is to attribute for the blood relationship of the primary owner of the vehicle or user's friends circle. This is followed by the validation of the registration number with the VBU at the back end. Once the validation is termed to become successful, then the mobile number of that particular registration number is retrieved at the back end. Simultaneously, the toll amount is collected from the user and the amount received along with the toll id at which the amount was deducted or collected is then sent as an update to the user mobile. The functional flow of the toll collection system is as follows,

1. If any vehicle enters the toll collection unit, the VBU is recognized at the entrance of the toll plaza itself.
2. The name(s) of the owners with respect to the recognized VBU is retrieved from the master repository.
3. The owner of the vehicle (who drives the vehicle in this case) is asked to provide the registration number at the entrance of the toll plaza.
4. If the registration number provided by the user at the entrance of the toll plaza matches with one of the registration numbers that is retrieved from the master repository (the list of owners), the user is allowed to proceed in as the validation is said to have completed and subsequent actions to collect the toll amount and sending the same to the user mobile are performed.
5. If the validation of the user fails, the owner(s) of the vehicle is alerted about the illegal access.

There are some assumptions made to accelerate and implement the proposed authenticated vehicular parking and parked vehicle identifier system. They are as follows,

a. Total Number of the Vehicular parking Slots in a particular building of a city is
defined and total parking bays for a particular city is fixed (static).
b. Every Vehicle is identified while entering and exiting the parking bay. User leaves
only after paying the bill.
c. There are separate parking bays for different vehicles lire car, two-wheeler etc., and
each vehicle will occupy only one slot.
d. Driver not given opportunity to choose the slot for parking the vehicle. Association of

Mobile with the entire set of the vehicle Owners (associated with VBU in master repository).
e. Presence of the mobile with the user while parking the vehicle.
f. The master repository is up and running all the time.
g. The presence of the Wi-Fi enabled mobiles with all the users.
h. Availability of the unique registration number (Card) with all the users of this system.

i. Association of the registration number of the user with their mobile number and the VBU of the vehicle that the users own.

The identification, presentation services are used to identify the vehicle using vehicular onboard unit during entry and exit at the parking bay and present the mobile of the end user with all the required updates about the parking information of a particular vehicle to which the end user mobile is associated with. The service rendering function co-operates with the operation and maintenance through support function in the tier 3, thereby taking care of the PSC and UPVIN updates. Payment processing, billing and vehicle slot finding and resource planning are also taken care at tier 3 with a huge master repository up and running all the time has three warehouse, one VBU warehouse (has VBU, Registration number, mobile number, Status, PSC and UPVIN) associated directly with the vehicular warehouse and finally the parking slot warehouse, having the PSC and the Status along with the VBU of the parked vehicle. All the interactions with the end user happen only with the user's hand held device preferably mobile in the tier 1. The entire system runs only on the two services -the identification and presentation services. The support function is a dedicated service that is being offered to maintain and keep running the master profile repository for smooth functioning of the entire authenticated vehicular parking system.

Identification service. It includes the identification of the VBU at the entrance and the exit of the parking bay. It is this service which communicates with the back end with the help of intermediate routing tier. The main function that this service provides is the validation and authorization of the user with respect to the VBU identified. Any VBU is recognized at the

entry and at the exit of the parking bay with the help of the wireless sensor nodes implanted or embodied into the vehicle having unique identifier. The wireless sensor gateway is responsible for the recognition of the same and communication to the back end. Once the VBU is recognized and the registration number is obtained from the user, both the input information is communicated to the repository tier with the help of intermediate base station. Thus the completion of the validation marks the end of the identification service and act as a signal to start the presentation service.

Presentation service. It includes the communication of the parking slot code to the authorized end user mobile and provision of the Unique Parked Vehicle Identification Number (UPVIN) to the end user based on their request. It retrieves all the details pertaining to the end user such as the mobile number to update the end user with all the activities pertaining to their vehicle. The illegal access is also communicated to the end user using this presentation service (alert message) when an attempt is made for unauthorized access of any particular vehicle. The successful validation of input parameters in identification service acts as a signal that triggers this presentation service. After the validation the user mobile (corresponding to that of the registration number) is updated with all the parking information update such as the PSC and UPVIN provision, payment and billing information. All these updates are monitored by the service execution unit and maintained by the support function team.

The system is designed to present different parking slots across different building for a particular city. This system is intended to allocate a single parking slot for a user (vehicle) on the entry of user into the parking bay and provide user with the unique parked vehicle identification number (UPVIN) to locate the parked vehicle later. The system maintains at the tier 3 - repository level, the available free slots in a particular floor, allotted slots and the slots that are reserved. The reserved slot means the parking slot is allotted to a vehicle which has just entered the parking bay, but has not occupied that particular slot, at the current time instance. The concept of the reserved slot is introduced to avoid the conflict of assigning two different vehicles, the single parking slot. At a given instance of time, the system knows the available parking space, allotted and reserved parking space for each building of a city. Thus the master repository could now assign based on the availability of the parking slots, to the new vehicle that enters the parking bay. The system outputs the empty slots, reserved slots and available slots for every instance of time when a vehicle enters or exits the parking bay. The system also keeps track of all the vehicles that are parked and those that are not parked in the parking bay, thus also helping for the purpose of vehicular trafficking and traffic

monitoring. This would facilitate in prevention of theft and misuse of the vehicle. The snapshots of the entire parking slot (of a building) at a particular time instance spanning across all the floors of a building is known to central master repository. This information could be used by the parking authorities to uniformly distribute the parking load on each floor, thereby assigning the parking slots accordingly to the new vehicle that enters the parking bay.

Services Rendered and Benefit of the system:
a. Vehicle Parking Slot Finder. The vehicle while entering the parking bay is given the instruction through PSC on the location where the particular vehicle should be parked.
Conflicts on the vehicle parking slot is thus resolved.
b. Vehicle Ownership Validation: The vehicular ownership is validated before, whenever the vehicle is the parked, thus providing a possible solution to the theft or misuse of the parked vehicle by anonymous user.
c. Parking Slot Locator: The UPVIN is used to locate the parking slot of the user's parked vehicle. Centralized fashion of implementation of this system would be helpful in locating the parked vehicle from anywhere in the city.
d. Automatic Billing and Payment: The payment and the billing process could be automated using this proposed system. Thus there is a scope for reduction of large man power involved in assisting the entire process of parking service.
e. Vehicular Trafficking: The centralized fashion of this system implementation and integration and extension of system with the ability to track the movement of the vehicle in and around the city would also help patrolling by means of vehicular trafficking.

The main benefit of this system could be broadly categorized into two domains,
1. User: Parking Slot notification and the Slot locator with the prevention of theft and misuse of the vehicle (to a greater extent).
2. Parking Bay Organizer: Automated Billing and Payment, vehicle trafficking (inside the Bay) and ease in the parking service operations with control over the misuse of the vehicle and reduction in the slot conflicts with easy allocation of the parking slots.
3. General Benefits: Implementing additional services like toll collection would become easier, vehicular trafficking in and around the city would become possible if this vehicular parking slot finder and identifier system is implemented in city basis.

Requirements:

1. Wi-Fi Enabled Base Station: As Industry Scientific Medicine (ISM) Band is free for utilization, Wi-Fi is preferred. Bluetooth is not suited due to short range communication and weakening of the signal in presence of an obstruction. NFC needs government policy changes and spectrum allocation. Zigbee is not used due to the fact of presence of large inter-symbol interference and the fact that it is usually preferred for long distance transmission and financially huge investment for set up is required. Proposed idea needs only short range communication standard protocol for enabling the communication between the user mobile and the base station. So the Wi-Fi is chosen as the medium for communication between the mobile and the base stations

2. Vehicular onboard unit (VBU) placed in the vehicles with unique Identifier embedded in the VBU of each vehicle. This VBU is helpful in recognizing the during its entrance and exit of the parking bay.

3. Central Warehouse - Repository to store the registration number and associate with the user mobile and the VBU of their owned vehicle(s) and to update the information pertaining to the PSC and UPVIN.

4. Wi-Fi enabled mobile to receive and send the parking bay details and well designed and architected parking bays in the place of interest.

5. Presence of the Wi-Fi base station in all important locations and parking bays of the city for implementation of this system in large scale throughout the city.

Possible Failure Mode and Recovery Procedure

The main failure that could be associated with this system is the theft of the user mobile. Then the possible recovery mode would be contacting the support team of the system, also authenticating the individual through an e-mail from officially registered mail address and reporting about the loss of the mobile. Thus the safety property is upheld with the help of this solution to a particular failure mode. The necessity of pre-association of e-mail id of all the owners with the repository tier becomes necessary. The liveliness is also maintained as the other mobile number associated with the vehicle other than the lost mobile would be still functional.

CLAIMS

1. I claim that conflicts on the vehicle parking slot is resolved as the vehicle, while entering the parking bay is given the instruction through Parking Slot Code on the location where the particular vehicle should be parked.

2. I claim that the authenticated and authorized use of the vehicle is guaranteed as the vehicular ownership is validated before the vehicle is parked.

3. I claim that there is provision of a possible solution to the theft or misuse of the parked vehicle by anonymous user using this vehicular parking system.

4. I claim that this system would be helpful in locating the parked vehicle from anywhere in the city using the Unique Parked Vehicle Identification Number (UPVIN) by their owners.

5. I claim that the payment and the billing process could be automated using this proposed system, thereby a scope for reduction of large man power involved in assisting the entire process of parking service.

6. I claim that the centralized fashion of this system implementation will have the ability to track the movement of all the vehicles associated with this system in and around the city and would also help patrolling by means of vehicular trafficking.

7. I claim that there is complete validation and authentication of user details before the vehicle is parked and also before the exit of the vehicle from parking bay.

8. I claim that the implementation of additional services like toll collection would become easier and could be integrated with this proposed system.

9. I claim that only the authenticated and authorized user only can locate their parked vehicle using UPVIN (Unique Parked Vehicle Identification Number).