Abstract: Users need to be encouraged to return vehicles such as airport baggage trolleys or supermarket trolleys to a vehicle storage area. The area is equipped with an entrance fitted with a system for dispensing a reward for each vehicle returned to the area. The system comprises detector means (16, 17) for detecting the presence of a vehicle at the entrance to the storage area, control means for determining whether a vehicle has been effectively returned (and not just passed back-and-forth past the detector means), and means (23) for dispensing a reward such as a ticket exchangeable for a benefit of some kind for each returned vehicle.

Abstract: An object such as a bottle to be identified by its shape is made to travel between a source and an elongated radiation receiver in a direction oblique relative to the travelling direction of the object so as to define, during the travelling, positions in which said receiver presents a segment, the points of which are at least partly occluded by the object, flanked by first and second segments (X and Z) not occluded. The length variations of at least two of the three segments of said receiver are read out for obtaining a characteristic relation of the object shape. Parameters of this relation are compared with corresponding parameters of characteristic relations of the shape of typical objects so as to find out whether the object travelling belongs to the category of one of the typical objects, and if in the affirmative, to which of them. The invention is applicable to the automating refund of deposits on bottles.

Abstract: A method and an installation for encouraging the restitution of a vehicle such as a shopping cart in a reception area the access of which is controlled by wickets. The vehicle is twice identified at the entry of the reception area, by means counting for example the bars of a vehicle side, and causes the delivery of a ticket or the like when it has been identified and fully introduced in the reception area.