System and method for coordinating parking enforcement officer patrol in real time with the aid of a digital computer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10817814-B2
Application number	US-201615249315-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 26, 2016
Priority date	Aug 26, 2016
Publication date	Oct 27, 2020
Grant date	Oct 27, 2020

Abstract

A system and method for coordinating parking enforcement officer patrol in real time with the aid of a digital computer is provided. A time-based active representational model of the city is created by fusing sensory data collected from various sources around a city with numerical data gleaned from historical and ongoing activities, including parking regulation citation and warning numbers, resource allocations, and so on. The model can be used to form quantitative predictions of expected violations, revenue stream, and so forth, that can then be used as recommendations as to where to enforce and when, so as to maximize the utilization of the limited resources represented by the officers on the street. Moreover, the performance of the officers can be weighed against expectations of performance postulated from the quantitative predictions.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for coordinating parking enforcement officer patrol in real time with the aid of a digital computer, comprising:
an automatic license plate reader that is affixed to a moving vehicle and configured to read license plate identifications of parked vehicles as parking data;
a storage device, comprising:
definitions of beats within a city for a plurality of parking enforcement officers, wherein each enforcement officer is associated with one of the beats and enforcement activities are to be performed by that officer within the associated beat;
a super-beat that combines the beats of each of the officers, the officers on the super-beat forming a team; and
a time-based active representational model of the city that comprises estimates of parking violations expected to occur within the super-beat and which fuses the parking data with parking citation data and parking information received from sensors in the city;

a processor and memory within which code for execution by the processor is stored, further comprising:
an activity planner adapted to build several versions of a team activity plan for all of the officers on the team based upon the fused information from the active representational model by identifying two or more areas of priority for patrol within one of the beats of the super-beat and splitting the areas of priority within the single beat of the super-beat between two or more of the officers; and
a recommender to automatically generate a suggested route from the single beat of the super-beat to a different area of the super-beat and an estimated number of citations along the estimated route for each of the two or more officers for shared patrol in the single beat based on the active representational model and to deliver the suggested route and estimated number of citations to each of the two or more officers for patrol;

a wireless computing device associated with each of the officers; and
one or more of a parking kiosk and parking meter to identify parking violations and provide notice of the parking violations to one or more of the officers via the wireless computing device associated with that officer.

2. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising at least one of:
historical enforcement citation data collected from past parking violations within the beats as part of the parking citation data; and
current enforcement data derived from the officers' tracked activities while on their beats as part of the parking citation data.

3. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
the processor and memory further comprising:
an event monitor adapted to assemble the activities of each of the officers on the team that have been completed; and
the activity planner further adapted to build one or more updated team activity plans for the team based upon the fused information from the active representational model and the completed activities, and to identify the updated team activity plans that optimize performance by the team.

4. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
the processor and memory further comprising:
the activity planner further adapted to build one or more updated team activity plans for the officers remaining on the team following assignment of one or more of the officers on the team to respond to an unplanned event based upon the fused information from the active representational model, and to identify the updated team activity plans that optimize performance by the officers remaining on the team.

5. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
characteristics pertaining to the super-beat that are included when building the team activity plans from the group comprising one or more of nature of the beat, time of day, and day of week, season, number of officers on the beat, traffic conditions, and service requirements.

6. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising:
the processor and memory further comprising:
a motivation recommender adapted to create analytics based upon differences between the expected performance of the team according to the optimal team activity plans versus the team's actual performance according to the tracked activities of the officers on the team.

7. A system according to claim 6 , further comprising:
the motivation recommender further adapted to set expectations for each of the officers on the team based upon their optimal team activity plans, to provide the expectations to the officers, and to include whether the officer met the expectations as part of the analytics.

8. A method for coordinating parking enforcement officer patrol in real time with the aid of a digital computer, comprising the steps of:
identifying beats within a city for a plurality of parking enforcement officers within which enforcement activities are to be performed by each of the officers, wherein each officer is associated with a wireless computing device and one of the beats;
combining the beats of each of the officers into a super-beat, the officers on the super-beat forming a team;
reading license plate identifications of parked vehicles as parking data via an automatic license plate reader that is affixed to a moving vehicle;
fusing the parking data with parking citation data and parking information received from sensors in the city into a time-based active representational model of the city that comprises estimates of parking violations expected to occur within the super-beat;
building several versions of a team activity plan for all of the officers on the team based upon the fused information from the active representational model, comprising:
identifying two or more areas of priority for patrol within one of the beats of the super-beat; and
splitting the areas of priority within the single beat of the super-beat between two or more of the officers;

automatically generating a suggested route from the single beat of the super-beat to a different area of the super-beat and an estimated number of citations along the estimated route for each of the two or more officers for shared patrol in the single beat based on the active representational model;
delivering the suggested route and estimated number of citations to each of the two or more officers for patrol; and
identifying parking violations via one or more of a parking kiosk and parking meter and providing notice of the parking violations to one or more of the officers via the wireless computing device associated with that officer.

9. A method according to claim 8 , further comprising at least one of the steps of:
collecting historical enforcement citation data from past parking violations within the beats as part of the parking citation data; and
deriving current enforcement data from the officers' tracked activities while on their beats as part of the parking citation data.

10. A method according to claim 8 , further comprising the steps of:
assembling the activities of each of the officers on the team that have been completed;
building one or more updated team activity plans for the team based upon the fused information from the active representational model and the completed activities; and
identifying the updated team activity plans that optimize performance by the team.

11. A method according to claim 8 , further comprising the steps of:
following assignment of one or more of the officers on the team to respond to an unplanned event, building one or more updated team activity plans for the officers remaining on the team based upon the fused information from the active representational model; and
identifying the updated team activity plans that optimize performance by the officers remaining on the team.

Assignees

• Conduent Business Services Llc

Inventors

• Stefik Mark J
• Singhal Mudita
• Albanese Kevin
• Ali Farrukh
• Bier Eric A
• Bobrow Daniel G
• Cardenas Sanchez Eduardo
• Darst Matthew T
• Eldardiry Hoda
• Gavai Gaurang
• Krivacic Robert T
• Tarkan Sureyya

Classifications

• G06Q10/063116

  Schedule adjustment for a person or group · CPC title

• G06Q10/063114 Primary

  Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group · CPC title

• G07B15/02

  taking into account a variable factor such as distance or time, e.g. for passenger transport, parking systems or car rental systems (G07B15/06 takes precedence; taximeters G07B13/00; parking meters per se G07F17/24) · CPC title