Abstract
One of the most significant problems in automatic ticket examination is to check the validity of the route written on a ticket. This problem is due to the service regulation that a passenger with a season ticket can get on or off at any station en route as many times as he likes.
The problem can be divided into three subproblems; (1) coding the railways network, (2) describing the route onto the ticket and (3) checking the validity of it. The item (1) and (2) are concerned with representing the route on the ticket with as little amount of information as possible, and the item (3) is concerned with realizing the judgement function of an apparatus as simply and as inexpensively as possible.
We propose a method to examine the validity of the ticket by describing the route with line-sequence codes. Two kinds of tickets are treated with one mechanism. One is a season ticket and the other is an ordinary ticket for short distance passengers.
Microprogramming technique is employed for the checking circuit of the apparatus. With the same algorithm, an automatic fare adjustment is possible.
The distinctive features of the proposed method are
(1) to cover the nationwide network,
(2) to handle two kinds of tickets with one mechanism both in automatic ticket examination and in automatic fare adjustment,
(3) to cope easily with alteration and
(4) to be able to utilize the same machine at different stations.
