Claims:1. A system for collecting tolls from a vehicle moving along a roadway having an entrance and an exit, the system comprising at least an exit toll facility through which the vehicle can pass for toll collection, characterized in that the system comprises:
an entrance toll collection facility site corresponding to said entrance point of said vehicle to said roadway, said toll collection facility comprising a plurality of toll collectors to collect tolls from a plurality of said vehicles simultaneously,
wherein said plurality of toll collectors includes a master toll collector booth, MB, and at least one slave toll collector booth, SB,
wherein the said MB and the said at least one SB are communicably coupled to facilitate the collection of tolls simultaneously.
2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein a first vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles, exits the entrance toll collection facility when the collection of toll has been completed for the first vehicle either at the MB or at the at least one SB.
3. The system as claimed in claim 2, wherein a second vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles is always behind the first vehicle, and is at a SB of the at least one SB, for toll collection.
4. The system as claimed in claims 2 and 3, wherein the first vehicle and the second vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles exit the entrance toll collection facility simultaneously when the collection of toll at the said MB and the said at least one SB have been completed simultaneously.
5. The system as claimed in claims 2 and 3, wherein the second vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles, exits the entrance toll collection facility only when the collection of toll has been completed for the first vehicle either at the MB or at the at least one SB and the collection of toll has been completed for the second vehicle at a succeeding SB of the at least one SB.
6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the MB controls at least one barrier to facilitate the exit of the vehicle from said toll collection facility, and Automatic vehicle classifier, AVC, equipment.
7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein toll payment methods include cash, barcode, electronic and the like.
8. A method for collecting tolls from a vehicle moving along a roadway having an entrance and an exit, the system comprising at least an exit toll facility through which the vehicle can pass for toll collection by a system as claimed in any one of claims 1-7.
, Description:FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to a system to ensure a set of functions for taxation and time and cost efficient toll to pay for rights of use of road infrastructure, access rights of way.

BACKGROUND

An increasing number of vehicles are traveling over progressively more congested highways. Congestion and long backups on toll plazas are becoming more common. Such conditions involve a significant economic cost, through lost time, and reduced productivity. Moreover, serious accidents at toll plazas, caused by operator or mechanical failure, have also increased in frequency.

Existing toll systems suffer the same deficiencies, requiring each vehicle to slow sharply while entering the visual inspection area. Considering the current toll industry vehicle processing scenario at toll gates, only one toll booth can process only one transaction at a time.

Therefore, with the increase in vehicular congestion, there lies a need to of a modified toll booth system to provide increased throughput, better traffic management and reduced queuing of vehicles in the lanes.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of the invention to provide basic understanding of some aspects of the invention, neither to identify the critical elements nor to delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concept of the invention in a simplified form, as a prelude to a more detailed description of the invention presented later.

An object of the present invention is to provide a system for collecting tolls from a vehicle moving along a roadway having an entrance and an exit.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a system for collecting tolls from manage high volume of vehicles by increasing throughput of toll lanes at a toll collection facility.

According to one aspect, the present invention provides a system for collecting tolls from a vehicle moving along a roadway having an entrance and an exit, the system comprising at least an exit toll facility through which the vehicle can pass for toll collection, characterized in that the system comprises: an entrance toll collection facility site corresponding to said entrance point of said vehicle to said roadway, said toll collection facility comprising a plurality of toll collectors to collect tolls from a plurality of said vehicles simultaneously, wherein said plurality of toll collectors includes a master toll collector booth, MB, and at least one slave toll collector booth, SB, wherein the said MB and the said at least one SB are communicably coupled to facilitate the collection of tolls simultaneously.

According to another aspect of the present invention is a method of collecting tolls from a vehicle moving along a roadway having an entrance and an exit, by a toll collection system, the system comprising at least an exit toll facility through which the vehicle can pass for toll collection.

Other aspects, advantages and salient features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses exemplary embodiments of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

The above and other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject matter will be better understood with regard to the following description and accompanying drawings.

Figure 1 illustrates a flow chart of a toll booth/toll collecting facility operation, according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 2 illustrates a simplified block diagram of the communication between a master toll booth, MB and a slave toll booth, SB in a system for collecting tolls from a vehicle at a toll collection facility, according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 3 illustrates a system for collecting tolls from a vehicle at a toll collection facility, according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Figures 4-7 illustrate different scenario of working of a toll collecting facility, according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and may have not been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figure may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. Throughout the drawings, it should be noted that like reference numbers are used to depict the same or similar elements, features, and structures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of exemplary embodiments of the invention. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary.

Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, descriptions of well-known structure and method are omitted for clarity and conciseness.

The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the invention. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of exemplary embodiments of the present invention are provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

Features that are described and/or illustrated with respect to one embodiment may be used in the same way or in a similar way in one or more other embodiments and/or in combination with or instead of the features of the other embodiments.

It should be emphasized that the term “comprises/comprising” if used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or component but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.

According to an embodiment, the present invention provides a system for collecting tolls from a vehicle moving along a roadway having an entrance and an exit, the system comprising at least an exit toll facility through which the vehicle can pass for toll collection, characterized in that the system comprises: an entrance toll collection facility site corresponding to said entrance point of said vehicle to said roadway, said toll collection facility comprising a plurality of toll collectors to collect tolls from a plurality of said vehicles simultaneously, wherein said plurality of toll collectors includes a master toll collector booth, MB, and at least one slave toll collector booth, SB, wherein the said MB and the said at least one SB are communicably coupled to facilitate the collection of tolls simultaneously. A first vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles, exits the entrance toll collection facility when the collection of toll has been completed for the first vehicle either at the MB or at the at least one SB. A second vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles is always behind the first vehicle, and arrives at a toll collection facility at a SB of the at least one SB, for toll collection. The first vehicle and the second vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles exit the entrance toll collection facility simultaneously when the collection of toll at the said MB and the said at least one SB have been completed simultaneously. The second vehicle of the plurality of said vehicles, exits the entrance toll collection facility only when the collection of toll has been completed for the first vehicle either at the MB or at the at least one SB and the collection of toll has been completed for the second vehicle at a succeeding SB of the at least one SB. The MB controls the movement of at least one barrier to facilitate the exit of the vehicle from said toll collection facility, and Automatic vehicle classifier, AVC, equipment. The toll payment methods may include cash, barcode, electronic and the like.

The present invention relates to a toll system, having two toll booths so as to facilitate two vehicles paying toll simultaneously at two different booths. According to an embodiment a main booth also called the master booth, MB is operatively connected to a slave booth, SB. The master booth controls the barriers and Automatic Vehicle Classifier, AVC equipment. Other equipment is controlled both by the master booth and a slave booth.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a vehicle comes in a specific lane of the highway at the toll facility. The master booth and slave booth both are available. Vehicle owner can go to any booth. The vehicle owner has supposedly paid the toll tax at the master booth, MB and the transaction having completed, the barrier will then be commanded to UP and Traffic Light System, TLS, to GREEN. Then another vehicle comes in SB and transaction is completed. The SB will send the intimation of the transaction to the MB. The barrier will be commanded to UP and TLS to GREEN. Then vehicle crosses the exit loop. Then it is checked that if only one transaction is done or more. If only one transaction has been successfully performed, then barrier will be down and TLS will be RED but if more than one transaction available barrier will not be down. Barrier will be down after crossing all the vehicle whose transaction has been completed.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, referring to figure 2, there will be two queue - Double Booth Queue, DBQ and Double Booth Queue with AVC, DBQAVC on both the master booth and slave booth system. Slave booth creates a transaction packet and puts it into DBQ. This will be uploaded to master booth by the DTS service. MB will pick this transaction from DBQ and controls the hardware accordingly. MB will pick AVC class from the AVC system and update SB’s transaction with AVC class. This transaction is put in DBQAVC queue. This transaction is uploaded from MB to SB by DTS service. SB picks updated transaction with AVC class and updates the transaction in database.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the double toll booth system can function during various conditions representing the following exemplary implementations.

In an exemplary implementation of the present invention, referring to figure 4, when both booths operated by the toll collector, two vehicles arrive together and payment is processed at same time, barrier remains open for the both vehicles and after passing of both the vehicles, the loop the barrier gets down. In this case both vehicles are classified separately and images and videos are taken differently.

In an exemplary implementation of the present invention, referring to figure 5, if only one vehicle comes and stops at master booth, the toll collector processes the toll transaction and the barrier will open once the transaction process is completed. In this case the master booth works as a normal booth.

In another exemplary implementation of the present invention, referring to figure 6, only one vehicle comes and stops at the slave booth, and the toll collector processes the toll transaction and the barrier will open once the transaction process is completed. In this case the master booth has not done any transaction and only the slave booth hardware is operating with AVC and the barrier is being controlled by the master booth. The AVC of only the slave booth will be recorded in this case.

In another exemplary implementation of the present invention, referring to figure 7, if a vehicle at the front, i.e. at the master booth delays the payment or the toll transaction, the following vehicle, i.e. the vehicle at the slave booth has to wait until the payment of front vehicle at the master booth is cleared. Once the toll transaction at the master booth is completed, the barrier opens and both vehicles proceed.

In another exemplary implementation of the present invention, if the payment or the toll transaction is delayed by a vehicle at back i.e. by a vehicle at the slave booth, then the vehicle at the front i.e. the vehicle at the master booth can proceed and the barrier will be closed again until the payment or toll transaction of the vehicle at the slave booth is processed. After completion of transaction process at the slave booth, the barrier will open again.

In another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a toll booth system having at least one master booth, MB, and at least one slave booth, SB is provided. At least two cars can simultaneously pay toll at the toll collection facility so as to utilize the waiting time of a vehicle in queue as transaction time. The toll collecting facility/booth system is operably modified to communicate between a master booth, MB and a slave booth, SB. Automatic Vehicle Classifier, AVC data and incident images are produced and recorded with same physical equipment and logically identified with transactions.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, payment of toll by the vehicles at the toll collection facility can be cash, barcode, any form of electronic methods of payment and the like.

Some of the non-limiting advantages of the present invention are:
1. Increase in traffic throughput of toll lane by 40% thereby faster clearance of traffic leading to better user satisfaction.
2. Reduced queuing time for vehicles at toll plazas and user time saving.
3. Less manpower required to clear more traffic.

Although a double toll booth system has been described in language specific to structural features, it is to be understood that the embodiments disclosed in the above section are not necessarily limited to the specific methods or devices described herein. Rather, the specific features are disclosed as examples of implementations of a double toll booth system.