Motorola Corporation

Geotoll, Inc.

Noa, Inc.

Sears Brands, LLC

Wireless Silicon Group, LLC

Tractouch Mobile Partners, LLC

Other

Generation One, Inc.

Transform Sr Brands LLC

Jaime Andres Borras

Wyatt Drake Geist

Ruben J Gonzalez

James Edward Borras

Paul D Marko

Zaffer S Merchant

David L Brown

Richard A Comroe

Armando J Gonzalez

Jose M Fernandez

Richard Carrier

Michael D Sasuta

Jose I Suarez

Alfred B Wieczorek

Cesar W Carralero

Ronald E Sharp

Mauricio Bendeck

Daniel M Smith

Wayne W Ballantyne

Kenneth J Zdunek

Daniel J Coombes

Mark J Chambers

Alan M Victor

Siddharth Roheda

Betsy Owens

Timothy A Mitchell

Ozzie F Ramos

Wayne H Browand

Elizabeth Owens

Timothy J McGuckin

Gary W Grube

Marc Andre Boillot

Randy L Ekl

Gustavo Dario Leizerovich

Steven C Jasper

Thomas V D'Amico

Floyd D Simpson

James P Michels

David Penunuri

John Gregory Harris

Joseph L Dvorak

Christopher G Ware

Kenneth David Cornett

Eryk Dutkiewicz

Michel Bron

John E Major

Raul A Pombo

Karl R Weiss

Sacha Benjamin Holland

Raad Raad

Alain Edwards

Ted A Kozlowski

Thomas Lawrence Reinke

Carlos Antonio Miranda-Knapp

Jeffrey A Wolf

Susan M Whitney

S Hossein Beladi

Ronald L Scheiderer

Susan M Blackston

Gerald E Pioch

Don Rosen

Jim Belich

James P Morris

David D Johnson

Gunther Trieb

Jesus S Finol

Sayed H Beladi

Levent Y Erbora

Troy J Beukema

A method and apparatus for determining a distance travelled by a vehicle for the purpose of assessing and settling, a road usage charge allows for determining a distance travelled with a vehicle. A mobile device can acquire odometer values which are subsequently reported to a system that confirms the distance drive and determines a road usage charge. Once the actual distance travelled by the vehicle is determined by the system, a road usage charge can be determined. Fuel excise taxes paid by the vehicle operator for fuel used by the vehicle and tolls can be subtracted from the road usage charge to determine a road usage settlement amount that can be paid from, or refunded to a financial account associated with the vehicle.

Method and apparatus for determining a road usage charge

Location polygons are defined along traffic lanes and parking spaces to facilitate determination of the location of a vehicle relative to features associated with the location polygons. The location polygons are used, in one application, to identity entrance and exit of a special toll lane along a roadway, and to ensure that the vehicle properly enters and exits the tolling lane.

High accuracy geo-location system and method for mobile payment

A road usage charge system uses a proprietary blockchain to conduct transactions for road usage fees. While driving, a mobile device or equivalent tracks the vehicle location, speed, time of day, day of week, and any other parameter that may be used to modify a base road use fee are tracked and applied to conditional modifiers of the smart contract to create a new transaction block. As a result, the tedious reconciliation process normally associated with vehicular payments can be avoided.

System and method to preserve user's privacy in a vehicle miles traveled system

A method and system utilizes a device in a vehicle to periodically determine a location of the vehicle and store, only locally at the device, the location data. The device first detects the vehicle being turned on and identifies the vehicle. After identifying the vehicle the device determines the present location of the vehicle and transmits the present location to a backend server. The server determines the applicable geofence definition including the location and transmits the geofence definition back to the device, whereupon the device commences periodic location fixes, storing each location locally at the device. While performing the location fixes, the device also monitors the present location relative to the geofence definition. If the vehicle is approaching a border or edge of a geofenced region, the device requests a new geofence definition from the server. When the vehicle is shut off, the device transmits the distance driven in each geofenced region to the server. Additionally, the device selects a subset of location fixes to create an auditable record of where the vehicle has travelled, and transmits the record to the server, and then deletes all locally stored location information.

System and method to reduce processing load on backend servers in a vehicle miles traveled system

A method and apparatus for determining a distance travelled by a vehicle for the purpose of assessing and settling a road usage charge allows for determining a distance travelled with a vehicle. A mobile device can acquire odometer values which are subsequently reported to a system that confirms the distance drive and determines a road usage charge. Once the actual distance travelled by the vehicle is determined by the system, a road usage charge can be determined. Fuel excise taxes paid by the vehicle operator for fuel used by the vehicle and tolls can be subtracted from the road usage charge to determine a road usage settlement amount that can be paid from, or refunded to a financial account associated with the vehicle.

A road usage charge system tracks and reports the distance travelled by a vehicle. The accuracy of the distance driven versus competing considerations such as battery drain of the mobile device doing the reporting is augmented by defining a speed threshold. When the vehicle is travelling faster than the speed threshold, location sampling is performed less frequently, over larger distance intervals. However, when the vehicle is travelling at a speed less than the speed threshold, the location sampling rate is increased such that location sampling is performed at shorter distance intervals.

Method and system for adaptive GNSS sampling rate to improve mileage reporting accuracy of a road usage charge (RUC) system

A tolling system is operable to reduce the number of manual reviews of a toll point images needed to process toll fee charges by separately reporting from both toll points and mobile device in vehicles running a tolling application program the lane and crossing time when traversing a toll point. A tolling service can match records produced by the toll points with records providing by the mobile device when the toll point cannot immediately determine the identity of the toll customer passing through the toll point.

Method and system for reducing manual review of license plate images for assessing toll charges

Mobile devices are each associated with a respective toll account and are also configured to periodically report their location and related information while traveling in a vehicle, which is used to determine any applicable toll fees. In order to avoid assessing the toll fee to each account, a server of a tolling service first identifies mobile devices that are traveling together based on the location information, and then determines which of the mobile devices, if any, has indicated that it is connected to the vehicle audio system. The account associated with the mobile device connected to the vehicle audio system will be assessed the full toll fee, and the accounts associated with the other mobile devices will not be charged. If there is no indication of being connected to the vehicle audio system, then the location information is used to correlate the mobile devices with a license plate image taken at a tolling location, and the account associated with the license plate number will be assessed the toll fee.

Method and system for detecting multiple users traveling together and charging a single toll among the users automatically

A mobile device periodically determines its location and compares its location to a set of user-authorized geofenced region definitions. The proximity to any of the geofenced regions, as determines how often the mobile device determines its location (location sampling), and how it handles location information. Initially, when the mobile device is well outside of any of the geofenced regions a low location sampling rate is used. When the mobile device is within any of the geofenced regions, location information is transmitted, generally, to a backend server over a network. When the mobile device is not within any of the geofenced regions, transmission of location information can be inhibited. Further, when the mobile device is within a threshold distance of one of the geofenced regions, the sampling rate can be increased.

Dynamic geofence to preserve privacy and battery life

Location polygons are defined along traffic lanes and parking spaces to facilitate determination of the location of a vehicle relative to features associated with the location polygons. The location polygons are used, in one application, to identity entrance and exit of a special toll lane along a roadway, and to ensure that the vehicle properly enters and exits the tolling lane. The location polygons define geofenced regions, and each definition for a geofenced region can include one or more rules that are used to evaluate location information reported by a user's equipment. The rules dictate whether an action it taken or inhibited, such as charging a toll or not charging a toll, based on other location information reported by the user's equipment.

A system and method for dividing toll charges among vehicle occupants includes, at a mobile device, receiving identifying information for each vehicle occupant that can be used to verify the identity of the occupant. The identifying information can be biometric in nature, including images or voice prints. The information is provided to tolling service with which each of the occupants has an account. Toll charges that accrue as the vehicle travels are then divided or split among the vehicle occupants.

System and method for speech recognition for occupancy detection in high occupancy toll applications

Growing community of inventors

Miramar, FL, United States of America

Jaime Andres Borras