JP3537632B2 - Automatic ticket vending machine - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a touch panel type automatic ticket vending machine, and more particularly to an automatic ticket vending machine with improved operability when selecting a fee button displayed on a screen of a touch panel.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional automatic ticket vending machine for purchasing tickets and coupons (hereinafter referred to as "tickets") by operating the touch panel has a plurality of fare buttons arranged vertically and horizontally at predetermined intervals. . The customer selects one of a plurality of fee buttons displayed on the touch panel by touching the same, and thereafter, a coin or a banknote of an amount equal to or more than the amount displayed on the selected fee button is transmitted to the automatic ticket vending machine. By inserting the ticket, a ticket corresponding to the selected fare button is issued.

However, if the display range of the charge button displayed on the screen of the touch panel is the same as the effective pressing range in which the effective pressing can be recognized when touched, the display range of the charge button is When the area near the boundary is pressed, the control device of the automatic ticket vending machine may not be able to recognize that the charge button has been pressed. In such a case, it is necessary for the user to select the charge button again, and it is sometimes necessary to press the charge button to be selected many times, which is leading to a decrease in the operability of selecting the charge button. In particular, after putting money into the vending machine first,
If you select and press the fare button, the transaction is completed.In this case, when the area near the display area of the fare button is pressed and tickets that are not intended by the customer are issued, the ticket purchased at the station window It is very inconvenient for passengers because they need to get a kind of refund.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and is intended to enable an automatic ticket vending machine to set the effective range of pressing a fee button by itself.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic ticket vending machine with improved operability at the time of selection by touching a charge button.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention is an automatic ticket vending machine having a touch panel in which a plurality of charge buttons are displayed vertically and horizontally at predetermined intervals, and a touch position near the periphery of the charge buttons. position detecting means for detecting the rates volume selected by pre-Symbol touch position
If the button is not the desired charge button, press
Cancel to cancel the selected charge button
Button and the cancel button are pressed and the selected
Invalid range recognition means for recognizing the touch position as an invalid range when the charge button is canceled, and when the charge button selected by the touch position is a desired charge button, do not press the cancel button. The condition
As an effective range recognition means for recognizing the touch position as an effective range, and statistical processing means for statistically processing the scope and the invalid area the touch position in association with the fee button, the statistical processing Means for resetting an effective touch position of the charge button by means of the automatic ticket vending machine.

[0006] The position detecting means comprises optical sensors such as light emitters and receivers arranged in large numbers around the touch panel.

In the statistical processing, when processing the effective range and the invalid range of the charge button, the statistical processing is performed according to a frequency distribution set based on an appearance frequency.

[0006]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 schematically shows the appearance of an automatic ticket vending machine 10 of the present invention as a perspective view. The automatic ticket vending machine 10 includes a ticket vending machine main body 12 and a customer service surface 14 disposed in front of the ticket vending machine main body 12 and inclined toward the front side.
And The customer service surface 14 has a guide display section 16 for guiding and displaying the operation state of the automatic ticket vending machine 10 at an upper portion thereof.

[0007] A touch panel 18 having a CRT display or a liquid crystal display on the back surface is provided substantially at the center of the customer service surface 14. This touch panel 18
In the figure, a plurality of charge buttons 20 are displayed in a matrix at predetermined intervals vertically and horizontally as an initial screen, and a next screen button 21 for switching to the next screen is displayed.
Reference numeral 22 is a coin insertion slot for inserting coins when purchasing tickets, on the left side thereof, the amount of the inserted money, the purchase amount of the tickets when pressing the fee button, And an amount display section 24 for displaying the change amount. In addition, a charge button 2 is provided above the customer service surface 14.
Cancel button 1 to cancel the selection by touching 0
7, and a clerk call button 19 are provided. Further, a large number of light emitting and receiving devices 15 for detecting a touch position are arranged on the periphery of the touch panel 18.

At the lower part of the customer service surface 14, a bill insertion slot 26 for inserting a bill, a bill return port 28 for returning a bill when the change is a bill, and a change for coins. A change return port 30 for returning the coin in certain cases;
A catching-type ticket receiving port 32 for holding issued tickets so as not to fly out is provided.

FIG. 2 is a view showing a part of the charge button 20 of the touch panel 18 of the present invention, and FIG.
Is the charge button 2 at the start of operation of the automatic ticket vending machine 10.
FIG. 2B is a diagram illustrating a display range of 0 and a touch effective range, and FIG. 2B is a diagram illustrating a display range of the charge button 20 and a touch effective range after the automatic ticket vending machine 10 starts operating. .

In FIG. 2 (a), L1 is a boundary between sensors where the fee buttons 20 are adjacent to each other in the horizontal direction at the start of operation of the automatic ticket vending machine, and L2 is a vertical direction at the start of operation of the automatic ticket vending machine. The button 20 is the boundary between adjacent sensors. That is, at the start of operation,
The display range of the charge button 20 is the same as the effective range when the charge button 20 is pressed.

FIG. 2B shows a state in which when a touch sensor area around a certain fee button 20 is pressed and a transaction is established, the touch sensor area is recognized as being in the effective area E. I have. When the cancel button 17 shown in FIG. 1 is pressed after the touch sensor range around the charge button 20 is pressed, it is considered that the charge button 20 not intended by the user is selected,
It recognizes that the touch sensor range is an invalid range.
That is, by statistically processing the relationship between the touch sensor range around the fee button 20 and the establishment / non-establishment of the transaction, the effective range E extends from the display boundary of the fee button 20 to the periphery thereof. Become. That is, the effective range E of the touch sensor is set while the automatic ticket vending machine 10 learns itself.

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram of an automatic ticket vending machine according to the present invention. Central control unit 40 composed of CPU
Is configured to perform arithmetic processing using a system program stored in the ROM 42 and working data stored in the RAM 44.

Reference numeral 46 denotes a coin processing unit. The coin processing unit 46 has a coin discriminating device for judging the authenticity of coins inserted into an automatic ticket vending machine, and a counter. It has a change discharging device for discharging coins.

Reference numeral 48 denotes a bill processing unit. The bill processing unit 48 has a bill discriminating device for judging the authenticity of a bill inserted into an automatic ticket vending machine, and a counter. And has a fishing tag discharging device for discharging bills.

Reference numeral 50 denotes a ticket issuing unit, which has a mechanism for inserting money into an automatic ticket vending machine and discharging a ticket when a transaction is established when a fee button is pressed,
It is provided with a magnetic head for magnetically recording on a magnetic recording surface of tickets and a printing device for printing predetermined information on the surface of the tickets visually.

Next, the function of the control unit 40 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

Step (hereinafter abbreviated as ST) 100 includes:
In the case where the display range of the fee button 20 is the same as the touch effective range, the operation range of the automatic ticket vending machine whose sensor range is the initial value is shown.

In ST102, when the charge button 20 on the touch panel 18 or the vicinity thereof is pressed, S
In T104, the touch position is detected. The detection of the touch position is detected by a large number of light emitters and receivers arranged on the inner periphery of the frame of the touch panel 18, and the signal is transmitted to the control unit 4.
Sent to 0. When the touch position is detected and the charge button 20 on the touch panel 18 is turned on, the process proceeds to ST108 unless the user presses the cancel button 17 (see FIG. 1) in ST106. If the customer does not press the cancel button 17 in this way, the lit fee button 20 is recognized as a fee button intended by the customer, and the touched position is recognized as being in the effective range E in ST108 and ST112. Proceed to. In addition, even if the customer intends to press the charge button 20, there may be cases where the user presses the surrounding area. In this case, when the charge button 20 that the user does not intend turns on, by pressing the cancel button 17, The process proceeds to ST110 and recognizes that the touched position is invalid, and proceeds to ST112.

In ST112, statistical processing of the effective range E and the invalid range of the touched position is performed. For example, statistics are obtained by performing a frequency distribution process, which is a distribution of the frequency of appearance of an effective range E and an invalid range of a certain touch position.

Based on the statistics, in ST114, if the effective range E of the touch position is equal to or greater than a predetermined probability, for example, if it is equal to or greater than 70% to 80%, ST1.
Proceeding to S16, the touch position is set again to the effective range E.

By repeating the resetting of the effective range of the touch position, the effective range E is established around the charge button 20 as shown in FIG. That is, the automatic ticket vending machine of the present invention has a so-called learning function in which the effective range E of the charge button 20 is gradually determined by repeatedly pressing the vicinity of the charge button 20 on the touch panel of the customer. It will be.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, by touching the vicinity of each of a plurality of charge buttons displayed on the touch panel of an automatic ticket vending machine, if the desired charge button is touched, By recognizing the touch position as the effective range of the charge button, the effective range of each charge button is extended to the periphery thereof, so that only the range in which the charge button is displayed is regarded as the effective range. The operability is significantly improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a touch panel type automatic ticket vending machine.

FIG. 2 shows an enlarged part of a charge button displayed on a touch panel, and FIG. 2 (a) is a diagram at the start of operation in which the display range of the charge button matches the effective range of the touch position; (B) is a diagram after the start of operation in which the effective range is extended to the touch position near the periphery of the fee range.

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram of an automatic ticket vending machine.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating processing functions of a control unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 automatic ticket vending machines 15 Emitter / receiver 18 Touch panel 20 charge button E Effective range

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-8-87379 (JP, A) JP-A-7-271495 (JP, A) JP-A-7-78275 (JP, A) JP-A-5-78 80922 (JP, A) JP-A-4-24819 (JP, A) JP-A-6-95804 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G07B 1/00-9 / 02 G07G 1/00-5/00 G07F 5/00-9/10 G06F 17/60 G06F 19/00 G06F 3/033-3/037 G06F 3/03 G06F 3/00

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An automatic ticket vending machine having a touch panel in which a plurality of charge buttons are displayed vertically and horizontally at predetermined intervals, a position detecting means for detecting a touch position in the vicinity of the charge button, and a touch position selected by the touch position. Button is the desired fee
If it is not a gold button, press it to select
A cancel button for canceling the selected charge button, and the selected charge button when the cancel button is pressed.
When down is canceled, when the invalid area recognizing means for recognizing the touch position as invalid range, fee button selected by the touch position is the desired rates button not pressed the cancel button
On the condition that, the effective range recognition means for recognizing the touch position as an effective range, and a statistical processing means for statistically processing the effective range and the invalid range by associating the touch position with the fee button, An automatic ticket vending machine comprising: an effective range resetting means for setting an effective touch position of the charge button by the statistical processing means. 2. The automatic ticket vending machine according to claim 1, wherein, in the statistical processing, when processing the effective range and the invalid range of the fee button, the statistical processing is performed based on a frequency distribution.