Patent ID: 7103614

Claim:
A system for automatically retrieving vehicle information maintained at remotely-located databases for vehicles that must sequentially pass an entrance to a secure site wherein a plurality of vehicles are aligned in a queue leading up to the secure site with the queue having a front end located at the entrance and having a back end located a distance away from the entrance, said system comprising: sensing means for detecting the presence of each vehicle entering the back end of the queue and for generating a signal indicative thereof, wherein each vehicle has a license tag coupled thereto; a camera coupled to said sensing means and positioned to capture an image of each license tag in response to generation of said signal; a controller coupled to said camera for automatically accessing one or more of the remotely-located databases to retrieve information stored thereat that is associated with each license tag, said controller ordering said information so-retrieved to correspond to the order of the plurality of vehicles in the queue; triggering means for generating a trigger signal when the each vehicle reaches the front of the queue, said sensing means and said triggering means separated by a distance to accommodate the time that it takes for said controller to retrieve said information as each vehicle travels from the back end of the queue to the front end of the queue; and at least one device located at the secure site and coupled to said triggering means for making said information so-retrieved for each vehicle available in a human recognizable format in response to generation of said trigger signal wherein said information so-retrieved and made available corresponds to the vehicle at the front end of the queue.