WO2003019478A1

WO2003019478A1 - Combined payment system and method to reduce congestion of vehicles in metropolitan areas and freeways

Info

Publication number: WO2003019478A1
Application number: PCT/IB2002/003419
Authority: WO
Inventors: John Wolfgang Halpern
Original assignee: John Wolfgang Halpern
Priority date: 2001-08-25
Filing date: 2002-08-22
Publication date: 2003-03-06

Abstract

A traffic regulation system comprises at least one contactless smart card and separate reader. The card stores information corresponding to a predetermined period of time during which use of a vehicle associated with the card in a predetermined area is not permitted. The card transmits this information to the reader which determines whether the associated vehicle is omproperly located.

Description

Combined Payment System and Method to Reduce Congestion of Vehicles in Metropolitan Areas and Freeways

Car ownership cannot be equated with a self-given right to own the streets, especially if this access results in unreasonable road congestion in metropolitan areas or on highways meant to permit higher speeds than those feasible in built-up areas where children, elderly persons, and domestic animals may be endangered.

The ever rising car ownership makes some restriction inevitable .

Already, speed limits are enforced by radar installations, and drivers are deterred from selecting congested roads by vehicle identification means such as cameras which can read licence plates, or electronic proximity readers built into roads.

Both these methods are expensive to install and to maintain, and in any case must for economic reasons be restricted to the most challenging parts of the road system, and because these measures have no other benefit besides the just mentioned limited purpose. A few drivers may be persuaded by heavy penalties to change their habitual routing thereby aggravating congestion in other parts of the city. The total number of vehicles in a metropolitan area is not likely to be affected.

In my patent application GB 0111269.7 I have described a particularly reliable financial card system such as could be used not only in connection with an electronic travel pass but also as a universally applicable payment system gradually replacing money, debit cards and credit cards. It would combine all three forms of contemporary payment means; and ownership would be PIN protected in the same way as for example some mobile phones today are protected against unauthorised usage.

The author of this present paper has also other descriptions published or pending related to such a card. In the foreground are the advantages of money-less purchases, mainly improved security, authenticity and retrospective accountability.

What, however, is also needed urgently is: a system of transportation regulation that reliably reduces in many metropolitan regions the number of private car and delivery vehicles throughout the working week, thereby achieving a decisive relief on the roads for everybody concerned, including vehicles on public duty such as passenger transport buses, amid emergency services such as ambulances, fire and police vehicles.

As regard city centres, it must be remembered that many cars originate in the suburbs and even farther afield. Those who come from distant neighbouring cities do not repeat the journey day by day, so it would be unfair to place any restriction on them. On the other hand, most of the cars approaching and entering a metropolitan area come from the suburbs and extended suburban regions, and these tend to come in all the weekdays, Monday to Friday. It is to those regular car users that an appeal needs to be made to, to try and figure out how to employ taxis and public transport facilities at least on one day each week. The choice of the day may be left to the car owners. But clearly, it would be desirable to distribute a reduction of car inflow evenly over all the five working days.

The present invention aims to provide an improved arrangement and when viewed from a first aspect provides a traffic regulation system comprising at least one smart card and a separate reader, said smart card comprising means for transferring data to said reader without having to be in contact therewith, characterised in that said card stores information corresponding to a predetermined period of time during which use of a vehicle associated with the card in a predetermined area is not permitted, said card being arranged in use to transfer said information to said reader to permit the reader to determine whether the associated vehicle is improperly located.

Thus it will be seen that entry of traffic into designated zones may be regulated through use of smart cards and corresponding readers to read the cards. This provides a way of enforcing a regime, for example, whereby drivers who regularly drive into a metropolitan area pledge, by agreement or legal provision, not to drive his/her car into a delimited area of the region on one particular week day. This will have the effect of reducing the number of cars present in the congested area by approximately twenty percent .

A system to be described further below may use a microprocessor card with electromagnetic (contact-less) data transfer between the card and the reader. Such cards could, for example, be required to be placed on the inside window pane of each front door or rear door of the car.

In one particular system, readers able to read these cards at a distance of 2 yards or less, would be placed at parking lot entrances and exits. If cars are parked in streets, the capability of surveying whole city districts by a few motor cyclists would be achieved by strapping double-sided card readers onto a motorcycle's rear seat. Preferably therefore the reader is adapted to be attached to a mobile vehicle such as a motorcycle or the like. How these would work will be described below.

Preferably the smart card and reader are arranged to cooperate together in order to determine whether a vehicle associated with the card has exceeded an allowable parking duration. This is advantageous as essentially the same system as is outlined above may also be used for checking that cars parked in streets do not grossly exceed the prescribed parking time, and if they exceed it tickets can be issued on the spot, or billed later from a Transport Regulation Centre.

The absence of cards in door windows where they are required to be mounted can equally be checked quickly, and efficiently, although in a case of the missing microprocessor cards, a person checking vehicles such as the above-mentioned motorcyclist would have to take the vehicle's particulars manually.

Preferably the reader is arranged to transfer data to the card. One of the items stored in the card will be a code for each predetermined period of time - e.g. a day of the week, corresponding to when the vehicle is not permitted into the restricted area. For example, this might be the car owner' s voluntarily agreed day of the week on which he or she has undertaken to find an alternative transportation route for going to work. The car may still be used outside the metropolitan area, for example to drive to a railway station. However, should the car enter the metropolitan area on the wrong day or when the car is parked subsequently, especially in an area heavily used by motorists, preferably a flag signal is entered into the motorist's card. This could be done by means of a roadside reader at the entrance to the forbidden area. The flag signal would include the time the car entered the forbidden area.

The result of this could simply be a fine at a later date. Preferably, however, the smart card is in data communication with a control system of the vehicle with which it is associated such that the card may prevent use of the vehicle.

For example, if the car remains parked in excess of a prescribed maximum parking period and the owner wishes to start his/her car some time after it had been scanned a second time, it may be arranged that the car will not start. It could further be arranged that the only way for the car to be started will be assistance from an Automobile Club, a Car Rescue Service, or the Police by an officer applying a ^ΛCode Cancel Card' to an in-car card reader. This will presumably be done against payment of a penalty for having driven the car on the forbidden day plus having exceeded the maximum parking time. All other offences would probably be dealt with more efficiently by means of self-debiting action responsive to a reader- resident flag signal, or alternatively, by the data obtained by the metropolitan surveying fleet being passed on to a new traffic regulation centre.

In the description below, it is assumed that all offences can be identified by a mobile investigation fleet of motor cyclists and the data collected by them are likely to be sufficient for processing them and for fining the car owners at the said City Traffic Regulation Centre.

The smart card using contact-less data transfer may usefully comprise at least two sets of memories and special encryption hardware integrated on a single chip, preferably a specially designed microprocessor, to obtain shortest possible transfer and transaction times.

Preferably the Reader unit uses the same chip architecture as the card but in a complementary program. Preferably the reader unit also contains a magnetic tape memory package which can be withdrawn from the unit and applied to a central analyser or bill printing equipment.

The system could comprise the already-mentioned processing centre in combination with a network of telecommunication channels permitting the transfer of digital data collected in the Reader unit, to a larger temporary data retention unit in the said Centre. In a preferred example, the data assessment will produce:

- fees for a car or other vehicle having been in the metropolitan zones on the allotted or voluntarily agreed forbidden day;

- fees for having parked a car on one of the four allowed days, in excess of a cost-free time limit, the excess hours being charged on a graduated basis up to a maximum time;

- a fee for having parked in excess of the maximum time;

- a fee for the combined offence of having exceeded the maximum parking time after having driven to the metropolitan area on the allotted forbidden day. If the car or other vehicle associated with the card has a reader for starting the engine with a card of the described type, the reader may be programmed to reject the ignition key card until an inhibition flag has been removed. However, this added feature would make no difference to the collectability of the fee as such.

- a fee for failing to mount the cards as prescribed on side windows of the car; and finally, a fee for using a stolen card.

Fraudulent misuse of the system is highly unlikely because of the features of the data encryption/ decryption system having been built into the Micro computer chip itself.

The contact-less smart card may have a built-in battery. Preferably however it is essentially a passive device, in that it receives its operating energy from the reader when presented to it at a moderate distance, e.g. varying between 1 and 6 ft. An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the main features of a smart card in accordance with the invention;

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of part of a reader unit in accordance with the invention; and

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a further part of the reader unit.

Fig. 4 illustrates the modified manner by which a contact-less card is proposed to be placed into an automobile.

Fig. 5 shows the card and the disk on which it is placed plus the details of an equalizing and concentrating resonant loop 500.

Fig. 6 shows the same arrangement but with two inter- coupled loops 500a and 500b.

Fig. 7 is a cross-section of the disk 200 made up of two parts with an enclosed contact-less card 300 between the two parts. Other forms of attaching the smart card are discussed in the text.

Fig. 1 shows on the left a Reader Unit 1 radiating HF waves towards the right where the smart card 2 with its embedded wire coil 3 and silicon chip 4 receives radiation energy. Tiny diodes 5 produces polar output supplied to transistor 7 which together with a zener diode 6 generates a voltage stable output at the + input to the chip 4.

A microprocessor unit (MPϋ) 8 comprises a combination of an ALU block with a programming or event sequencing block, a memory block and programmable read (R) , write (W) and input/output lines (I/O) , making the chip in essence a micro-computer unit (MCU) even though no address bus, data bus, and timing control bus are shown. The chip 4 further comprises two memories Ml, M2. An unconventional element of the chip 4 is the hardware circuit group El which encrypts outgoing outputs from M2 and decrypts incoming data for delivery to M2. The contents of Ml is the car owner' s Licence Number which, apart from being transferred in the clear to the Reader Unit, also loads a portion of its number into a register of El (the encryption key register) after sending the full licence number to the reader in the clear (non-encrypted) condition.

The chip 4 also comprises a number of logic gates (gates 11-14 are here shown in a representative sense for a much larger number of logic gates).

The operation of the system may be viewed in six steps. In the first step, as the card Reader 1 approaches the location of the card 2, it transmits electromagnetic energy to the card, pumping up the d.c. voltage applied to the IC of the card, and when it reaches the desired level, this re-sets all bi-stables to a starting point and signals to the Reader 1 the card's state of readiness. The electromagnetic energy is typically of a frequency in the Megahertz range. One of the standard frequencies is 13.56 MHZ.

In step 2, there is an inevitable short delay up to the moment when the card is powered up to the correct voltage. This may take a few milliseconds. Thereafter all circuit settings are Reset in base level. (Return to zero on power-on) .

After this brief time interval, the Card 2 sends to the Reader 1 the car owner' s licence number, thereby entering this number into the encryption registers of both the card 2 and the Reader device 1.

In step 3, the Sequencing Timer circuit 9 is then activated which synchronises Reader 1 and Card 2. During step 3, the contents of Ml in the card is read out. The memory Ml contains the Licence Number of the car. It is transferred to the Reader 1 where this number is stored, and also used as an encryption key for the encryption hardware circuit. Also in the card 2 itself, the contents of Ml is serially entered into the encryption circuit group algorithm El of the card chip 4, to control the encryption process.

Although the encryption of the M2 data offers protection against fraudulent evasion, security can be further increased by expanding step 3 by a supplementary step 3a.

Step 3a consists in the Card Reader electronics generating a pseudo-random number which is added to the said licence number obtained from memory Ml of the card, and the combined number is then transmitted to the card' s encryption register to act as the encryption control element. The same combined number is also used in this capacity within the Reader electronics for decrypting the data obtained from the card during the Step 4 (hereunder) . Instead of generating a random number in the Reader, such number may also be inserted into a register of the Reader Unit from an external device, for example by receiving it via radio waves

The addition may be carried out in various ways; (arithmetically, or serially, or by interlacing, or otherwise) .

Thus, after a brief time interval the Reader sends out from a Random register a contribution towards the encryption key to be used. When the card's random register is full, the card begins to send to the Reader the car owner's license number (or a definite portion thereof). In both the card and the Reader electronics, there is now assembled a combined binary number in the encryption key registers of the respective integrated circuits (IC's) of both the card and the Reader unit.

In step 4, the card sends out all the information contained in memory M2 which passes through the encryption/decryption algorithm and is then applied to the load modulation circuit Lm (Fig. 1) .

/

Various sectors of the memory M2 may of course contain any additional information, including a prepaid cash reserve, and banking details of the card owner, look-up tables, etc. specific to the owner's age or financial standing, etc..

The lookup tables may hold data concerning graduated penalty fees for various offences such as the parking fees beyond allowed limits, any exceptional circumstances, and the like.

In Step 5 the load modulation containing the encrypted information is received in the Reader 1 converted into standard digital form, applied to the input of the decryption circuit El in the Reader Unit (not shown) and then applied to the memory M2 in the Reader Unit.

The reader' s micro-computer then compares the readout of the week day codes with the prerecorded day codes. See also the detailed description of Fig. 2.

When receiving those details, the microprocessor of the Reader Unit may be programmed to convert them into fees in the local currency concerned, deduct them from the card' s prepaid (residual) cash reserve and retransmit the new residual cash reserve to the card for substitution in its corresponding register.

The Reader reads from the card all the day codes for the five week days, therefrom it can tell whether the four permissible days are recorded correctly, and further whether among the permissible days has been registered also the forbidden day. If it is, a buzzer of a certain pitch is sounded loud enough to be distinguishable from the general street noise.

The Reader 1 contains a battery-driven clock generating the instant time in digital form. When the Reader 1 engages a card 2 (which is normally mounted in the window of a car door) , it records also the exact time of the said event, irrespective of whether the parked car is in the metropolitan region on a permitted day or on a forbidden day. Each time, when a motor cycle scanner, or even a scanner on foot, takes a reading the time and date, derived from the portable scanner are recorded, and also entered into the memory of the card. Also, the licence number and the rest of the card information is retained in the Reader memory. It is this which permits the system to charge graduated parking fees, that is to say fees based on the last- recorded scanning time minus the first- recorded scanning time.

In step 6, the Reader unit transmits the time of an executed scanning sample to the smart card, into memory M2. Any consecutive scanning of the car will again be transmitted to memory M2. These times are assembled and are returned by the Reader to the Card in each consecutive scanning operation..

This facilitates the transfer of the last Readout to the magnetic tape unit, one of the ingredients of the READER UNIT which contains the approximate time span for the parking time. It is this recorded time interval that underlies the fee calculation for legitimate parking. (As indicated further above, there exists the technical basis for instant individual debiting, to reduce the work load at the Transport Regulation Centre with respect to those car owners who have a banking account) .

A different rate may be considered if the car concerned is found to have been parked in the City on its forbidden day.

Fig. 2 represents a portion of the Reader Box to illustrate how the parked car scanning system can be changed so as to recognise the forbidden day code in the card, and to recognise also the not forbidden four days codes. From this the scanning box will know that the test is genuine, therefore both the forbidden day has to be checked as well as the allowed days.

The Reader Box is programmed in such a manner that the first data sent out concern the forbidden day code. After a short pause (1 or 2 milliseconds) the four allowed day codes are tested as a single uninterrupted string of data. Then the day and time of the various scanning times are read from the card (needed for calculating the approximate parking time) , and finally, the information is checked against reported theft of cards. Thus is done by reading out the license number of the car from the card, amid comparing it with those license numbers reported to the Regulator Agency over the last two or three weeks.

Evaluation Steps, (a) Is the prohibited day's code number among the code numbers received?

If so, the red lamp is lit, the penalty is x$ .

(b) Is there at least one correct code number for the non- forbidden days among the data received? If so, the green lamp is lit and the transaction is legitimate. If not, the conclusion is that there is no card in the window of the car, and the car scanning officer stops to get the car's licence number.

(c) If the green lamp is on, is there a time entry in time card derived from a prior scanning operation on the same day? If yes, check against maximum free parking time. If in excess thereof determine the graduated parking fee x$. cents. If there is no prior time entry, send to the card the instant time, derived from the Reader's independent time clock. Add up all penalties in the Reader processor and send result to Card for entry into memory M2. Record the licence number together with the aggregate penalty in the Reader Unit's tape recorder.

All cards are automatically checked as stolen cards. The Card Reader Unit has facility br entering a fixed number of licence numbers which have been reported over the past three weeks as stolen cars or cards. When the scanning operation takes place, the last readout licence number is then compared with all the licence numbers reported as stolen. For example, a white light gets lit when cards or car turn out to be stolen. This comparison relates only to those reported during the past three weeks, or so. To obtain a search beyond that number, thee scanning officer may decide to call the Regulation Centre via mobile phone, and requests a more detailed search.

Thus, the motor cyclist who runs the scanning service is immediately informed of any of the three types of offence by a corresponding lamp L lighting up. This gives the rider opportunity to stop, and to repeat the test result manually by using a handheld Reader. The seriousness of stealing a card makes such re-assurance necessary. Also, the true license number of the car in which the stolen card had been installed, can only be ascertained by visual inspection of the car.

It is clear that some persons need to be exempted from police prosecution or from paying penalties because their professional capacity may require them to be available for various contingencies, such as nurses, doctors, detectives and the like. The electronic display would then also disclose the words ^Λ0n Duty' . As the output signal from the card would normally be encrypted, it would be very difficult for anyone to generate this information for contact-less transfer into the officer's card reader. The data thus received would be authentic and dependable, especially when they are derived from a single IC chip in the device.

If, for example, Monday be the day when a particular car having a license number N-I is not allowed into a metropolitan area, then a day-code MON is the first data group sent to the Scanning Reader in encrypted form. As we know from Figure 2, the license number is held in the ROM memory Ml which is sent out via OR gate 13 to the gate of the transistor T which thereby modulates the load on the energy receiving coil 3. This is the basis of data transmission to the Reader. After decryption in the Reader the received code is compared with its own (for the day Monday) . If the car concerned tries to park in a parking lot it will be discovered already at the entrance passage. If it hopes to disappear among the many other cars parked in a street, it will be discovered when the next traffic attendant's car or motor bicycle passes that street.

Next in sequence, the scanning device needs to know that the car has in fact its own card suspended in one of its side windows, and at least one of the remaining four allowed day codes agrees with its own day codes. As the license number is used as an encryption key in both card and Reader, a green light coming on in response to this second comparison proves that the card is in working order. However, this does not yet prove that the automobilist has not irregularly obtained the card from another whose prohibited day happens to be any day except Monday. If only the green light comes on, this proves that the car has a different day as the off-limit day amid therefore has a right, but the cards may have been stolen. Therefore, it is important that those who discover that their window cards are missing, should report this immediately. This will enable the Regulator Authority to give the licence number of the missing cards (or missing car) to the scanning personnel. They will enter that number into their Card Reader Units, and in this way quickly recover the stolen cards. If the event happens more than once, a stiff fee would be payable, hotels would issue to their guests' cars free cards, to protect them from unjust interference. They would be valid for a limited period, say one week. Thereafter they would be subject to the same evaluation as all other parking cards . Diplomat Cars can be exempted in the same way as the "On Duty" cars .

It is important that the scanning officer can make an immediate decision as to whether a car carries stolen or wrongly applied cards in its windows. Stolen cards are likely to be reported to the Regulation Authority. Therefore, the Reader Box has facilities for entering via a keyboard or via mobile radio text entry the license number of the stolen cards or stolen car. The Reader electronics may hold adequate memory for storing a license numbers reported during the past three weeks and these can be compared with the license number read out from scanned cards. The advantage of mobile radio text entry is that the operator can make contact with head office and update the list of stolen cards or cars several times during his shift period.

If the cards are removed from the windows, this can be immediately registered as an offence because it can be seen by the officer concerned. In addition, as explained, the absence of verification of at least one of the valid day numbers, causes an offence signal, combined with a strong audible sound. If there is a normal response, i.e. the green light comes on, yet it will be still be advisable for the scanning officer to look at the display screen as to the type of car which is also held in Memory M2 (fig. 1) . The rule that each registered car must have a pair of cards, could be used by a person having several cars, in such a manner that he or she takes the cards of a second car whose forbidden day does not fall on the day of the person' s first car, but puts them into the first car. In such a case, a glance at the type or manufacturing year, may provide the clue. The display may say "FORD 1960", but the car just passed was a "Bentley 2000" (to give a drastic example) .

Figs. 2 and 3 show the detector circuits as well as a manual adjustment disk which the scanning officer would have to reset every morning before he or she starts the morning shift. The dual-in line devices 18 contain shift registers, the serial data for the day identifying code. There are only five devices, one for each week day. They are mounted on a dish 15 which is fixed. The outer ring 16 can be turned in steps of 72 angle degrees. Contact blades 19 or 20 match other contacts in each position, in such a manner that only one in each position represents the off- limit day. It is likely that a purely electronic method would provide a better and cheaper pre-setting tool, even though the method of Fig. 2 would be easier to pre-set.

The terminal points 22 connects to registers into which are loaded the electromagnetically transmitted data derived from the window-mounted cards. Both the data derived via the flexible wire connection 21 , and those received via the connector 22 , are then compared by an exclusive NOR gate 24 and if there is an output from any of the bistables the equality of the data streams is proven .

The meaning of the other outputs is self-evident from the drawing Figs . 2 and 3 and by what has already been discussed in this paper .

Because of the large number of cars involved, it would burden the cities involved with high equipment costs. It is therefore sensible to buy the smart cards in large quantities collectively by the community of all the major cities, and re-sell them to individual car owners at a slight profit margin, mainly to recompense the originators for their inventive and development effort. Such re-sale to car owners requires that the cards can also be used as cash cards for the purchases of a wide range of products, and especially in many forms of public transport as well. This implies that a car owner's card must be a cash card that can be updated in banks and other public places. It must not be physically tied to the car, in short, it must be easy to remove the card from the car window, and yet when placed there it must be well-secured.

Simple payment and access cards, although contact-less, can be used in connection with standard readers only at a relatively short distance (up to four inches). This would be quite inadequate in practice for the purposes described. There arises thus the problem of producing special cards which can be used for the purposes here described. In that case, these card devices would be more expensive. We therefore have figured out a way of improving the range whilst still using the inexpensive, mass-produced contact-less cards. It is the purpose of the descriptions below to show how this might be done. The device (Figs. 5, 6 and 7) may be called an equaliser and a concentrator plate (200) because it equalises local differences and also multiplies the electro-magnetic energy field into which the card (300) is placed, by the Q- f actor loop. The version of Fig. 5 a wire loop (500) and a variable capacitor (600) for fine-tuning to the prospective operating frequency, whereas the execution of Fig. 6 contains two loops (500a and 500b) each terminating in a fixed, compact capacitors (600a and 600b). The version of Fig. 6 is expected to show band pass characteristics and will increase response reliability. Fig. 7 shows a version wherein the plate (200) is made of two plates (200a and 200b) with contact-less chip card (300) sandwiched between the two. In other designs (not shown) the card would be held in place by a hinged spring-loaded lid. Still other designs might incorporate lockable retention of the card, in such a manner, however, that the card can be quickly removed and returned to a wallet, for normal purchasing requirements or for access to a transit system.

The plate (200) may be used for non-obligatory functions, for example for detector circuits responsive to reader-originated flag signals appertaining to fee or penalty determinations. The output of those circuits may drive a display screen showing up any fee or penalty as and when it is generated.

As a matter of interest, it would be mistaken to see these devices to be limited to draw out taxes from the auto- automobilist . The purpose of these new devices is to reduce the congestive behaviour patterns. Under this heading, it would be justified to produce also incentives for the auto-automobilist to begin his or her day rather early, well ahead of rush hour times. The readers and cards may be programmed to detect a vehicle passing, say, before 7 am or 6.30 am. When this occurs, the program may allow a 'thank-you' acknowledgement fee to be added to the value of the cash card. Such drivers may earn up to L50 per month by removing themselves safely from the other contributors to congestive situations, also on those days on which they are allowed to drive into the various cities, (the encryption system must of course be of such a kind that it would be hopeless for anyone to experiment with adding a value to his card or her card) .

Claims

Claims :

1. Combined payment system and method to reduce congestion of vehicles in metropolitan areas and free ways comprising at least one contact-less smart card and a separate reader, said smart card comprising means for transferring data to said reader without having to be in contact therewith, characterized in that said card stores information corresponding to a predetermined period of time during which use of a vehicle associated with the card in a predetermined area is not permitted, said card being arranged in use to transfer said information to said reader to permit the reader to determine whether the associated vehicle is improperly located.

2. A system and method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said smart card comprises means for encrypting said information prior to transmission to said reader, said card further being arranged to store information identifying said vehicle and to use said identifying information for said encryption.

3. A system and method as claimed in claim 2 comprising an encryption/decryption algorithm circuit accommodated on the same substrate as a microprocessor or respectively a microcomputer .

4. A system and method as claimed in claim 2 or 3 wherein said card comprises a non-volatile memory for storing said vehicle identification information and being arranged to transfer said identification information to said reader when power is supplied to the card.

5. A system and method as claimed in claim 4 wherein said card is arranged to transfer said identification information or at least a portion thereof to an encryption register on the card and the reader is arranged to transfer the identification to an encryption register therein.

6. A system and method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said card is arranged to transfer to said reader details of previous interrogations during a predetermined period.

7. A system and method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said reader comprises means for transferring data to said smart card.

8. A system and method as claimed in claim 7 wherein said reader is arranged to transfer to said card data corresponding to the current time and location.

9. A system and method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said smart card comprises means for storing information related to a monetary value, said card and reader co-operating to modify said value upon an instruction from said reader.

10. A system and method as claimed in claim 9 wherein said reader comprises means for transmitting details of said value adjustment to a remote institution for effecting a corresponding transaction or for statistical purposes .

11. A system and method as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein said reader comprises a look-up table to enable a type of offence to be determined based on information received from the smart card and/or the present time and location of the reader.

12. A system and method as claimed in claim 11 arranged to transfer data relating to the determined offence and associated fine to said card.

13. A system and method as claimed in claim 9 wherein said reader is arranged to calculate an aggregate monetary value to be transferred to said smart card, the card comprising means for recording individual adjustments.

14. A system and method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the smart card is in data communication with a control system of the vehicle with which it is associated such that the card may prevent use of the vehicle.

15. A system and method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the reader is arranged to add a further parameter to the encryption/decryption algorithm circuits of the reader and of the smart card in order thereby to increase the security against illegal manipulation of the data flow there between.

16. In a regulation system to inhibit an excessive use of road space by private cars and goods vehicles in metropolitan areas, the provision of smart cards having non-contact data transfer capability and corresponding terminals available to parking lots and to mobile parking personnel to check street parking of cars, wherein the cards hold in storage the code for one of the five weekdays on which the owner by agreement or legal provision pledges not to drive his/her car into a delimited area of the region, in order to reduce the number of cars present in the congested area by about twenty percent.

17. A regulation system to inhibit an excessive use of road space by private cars and goods vehicles wherein the latter are equipped with contact-less smart cards, with the parking lots having fixed reader units and the mobile street parking officers having mobile terminals, the said units having look-up tables for enabling for each type of offence and for each set of circumstances associated with a car owner, a set of penalty fees, and allowing the aggregate amount to be debited to the said car-born smart card.

18. In a regulation system to inhibit an excessive use of road space by private cars and goods vehicles in metropolitan areas, the provision of smart cards, and the said system further providing smart card terminals in

(a) the various means of public transport

(b) in the engine start mechanism of private cars

(c) in transaction devices giving access to goods and services

wherein the cards hold in storage the code for one day in the week when by agreement or legal provision the owner of a car will not cross the city boundary line in his car

and wherein a second attempt to start the car, any time after the first start of the engine on the forbidden day, will not be responsive and the engine will not start, but will again be responsive by starting the engine after a passage of a predetermined period of time of several hours (say 6 hours)

portable terminals owned by Transport Authorities or the British Automobile Club which can write into the offending driver's card a code that will upon transfer to the car terminal cancel the said blockage thus permitting the car engine to start.

19. A regulation system as in claim 18 wherein also the terminals for access to goods and services contain storage space for storing the said code for the one day in the week when by agreement or legal provision the owner of a car will not cross the city boundary line in his car, and autonomous means (electronic clock) for identifying whether or not the day or time of usage agrees with the said transferred code of the day, and furthermore means for writing on the card presented the said blockage code without necessarily withholding the goods or services requested by the said customer.

20. A transport regulation system as in claim 19 wherein the transaction points for the supply of goods or services also contain a visual display to inform the customer of the fact that he is using his card within the metropolitan zone on the forbidden day.

21. An on-board electronic device with data display facility attachable to the wind screen which in large lettering displays the forbidden day as determined by agreement or legal provision, also optionally displaying the car's license number or the owner's home county.

22. An on-board electronic device with data display attachable to the wind screen as in claim 21 which further contains remote data receiving elements reacting to the proximity of a contact-less smart card transferring data to said device whereupon the said display means will also display the registered postal code area where said car is normally stationed, and any further data to assist an authorised person to identify the car and owner.

23. An on-board electronic device with data display screen as in claims 21 and 22 wherein upon receipt of the said access data signal from a contact-less card the aforesaid information is read out and transferred back to the memory of said card, to be available for central retrieval and further processing.

24. An electronic device as in claims 21 to 23 whose display screen is flexible and has a few adhesive spots so that the device can be stuck to the curved wind screen, or to one of the side windows, or to the curved rear window.

25. An electronic device as in claim 21 which contains flexibly embedded the antenna loops at a predetermined position of the display screen area which itself may display that area.

26. A traffic regulation system comprising at least one contact-less card as in claim 1 characterised by the employment of a preferentially transparent carrier plate upon which the said smart card is mounted in such a manner that it cannot be removed without a key or combination of release buttons to be actuated but permitting their regular user to withdraw the said card rapidly for other uses .

27. A carrier plate as in claim 26 which has a size substantially larger than that of the smart card and which is peripherally provided with a wire loop tune-able to the operating frequency of the said smart card in order to increase the electro-magnetic radiation field acting on the smart card by the Q-factor of said resonance loop, in the hope thereby to increase the operational distance between the reader and card.

28. A carrier plate as in claim 27 which comprises more than one wire loop in a largely concentric fashion in order to produce a band pass effect and to further increase the energy field, thereby enhancing the signal reception by the smart card.

29. A traffic regulation system as in claim 1 or any preceding claim, wherein the said contact-less smart card has adequate memory space to retain all the critical data which determine the charging of a fee, and adequate programming capacity for enabling the card, on receiving the flag signal from the reader unit, to self-debit its cash value register, or respectively to self-credit its cash value register with the correct pre-determined fee value, in order to perform the intended service without having recourse to a central debiting institution of this traffic regulation system, thereby saving a vast amount of overheads for running the service.

30. A regulation system designated to reduce the traffic congestion, by limiting the excessive use of the road or of the parking space, wherein a simple rule restricts the access of selected vehicles access in certain areas, and an electronic system to control the observance of the said restriction rule consisting in:

- At least one electronic device, univocally associated with a vehicle, named "smartcard" capable to store vehicle identification information and information revealing the condition of the vehicle with respect to the restriction rule (the rule observance/violation) and to send this information by radio, upon request, to

- At least one external device, named reader, capable to interrogate the smartcards located within it's radio visibility range and to establish as per the cards answers if the respective vehicles associated with smartcards observe or not the restriction rule.

31. A regulation system as in Claim 30, wherein the said smartcard is capable to store information signifying a monetary value, and the programs incorporated within the smartcard and the reader allow the execution of increase or decrease commands of the card monetary value, operations named "transactions".

32. A regulation system as in Claims 30, and 31, wherein both the smartcard and the reader are equipped with hardware or software modules capable to encrypt /decrypt the data sent by radio in order to secure the transactions .

33. A regulating system as in Claims 30, 31 and 32 capable to issue a command for the decrease of the card monetary value with a certain value, in case of detecting a violation of the restriction rule.

34. A regulating system as in Claim 33, wherein the residual monetary value of the smartcard after a transaction is calculated by the reader, and the card performs only writing commands in its own memory for the values calculated by the reader.

35. A regulation system as in Claim 30, wherein the said reader is equipped with an interface and the necessary programs to connect to a computer or to a computer network located in a traffic control center, in order to upload information about detected violations of the restriction rule .

36. A regulation system as in Claim 35, wherein the said reader is arranged to count the enquired smartcards, and to send this information to the traffic control center for statistic processing and drawing of a map of congestion areas .

37. A regulation system as in Claim 36, wherein there said smartcards are equipped with a display and necessary programs to display messages received from the traffic control center, by means of the reader, or messages issued by the reader itself. The said messages contain information about the traffic congestion areas, instructions concerning the available detours, or other information or instructions intended to improve traffic fluidity.

38. A system as in Claim 37, wherein the mechanism of adjusting the smartcard monetary value is used to automatically apply a fine to those drivers who ignore the warning signals and drive into an existing congestion area.

39. A system as in Claim 32, wherein specialized readers are located in paid parking .lots, gas stations, or in access points to any area where the access is conditioned by the payment of a fee, thus the mechanism of adjusting the monetary value of the smartcard is used to automatically pay for the goods or services. In this way, the positive balance of the smartcard' s monetary value does not necessarly signify a pre-paid fine.

40. A system as in Claim 32, wherein the said smartcards are connected and programmed to execute a special command to block the engine of the associated vehicle, in case a violation of the restriction rule is detected, or in case the vehicle is identified as stolen.