Electronic parking meter

摘要

Current systems of car-parking charges in public car parks either involve the use of coin-operated parking meters installed by the relevant authorities or the use of paper parking coupons. Enforcement officers are employed to manually check the meters and parking coupons for parking violations. This paper describes the design of an in-vehicle electronic parking meter (EPM) with an associated infra-red electronic enforcement gun (EEG). A pre-paid cash card is inserted into the EPM to activate the parking meter and the corresponding amount of parking charges are deducted when the vehicle owner next inserts the cash card to terminate the parking. Parking charges are levied based on the prevailing rates which are selectable by the car owner. The LEG is used by enforcement officials to verify that the vehicle owner has activated his EPM correctly. Communication between the EPM and the LEG is based on infra-red transmission.