Method for guiding passengers

• US 10,388,126 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2015
• Issued: 08/20/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2014
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Siemens Mobility GmbH (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Mobility GmbH (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Gruenbaum, Joerg, Last, Holger, Loskarn, Roland, Porsch, Roland, Schlaht, Juergen
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Jayanti K
• Assistant Examiner(s): Haghani, Shadan E
• Application Number:
  US15/312,708
• Publication Number:
  US 20170200355A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,553 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60N 2/002 Seats provided with an occupancy detection means mounted therein or thereon detection means responsive to presence or absence of children B60N2/266
• CPC Class Codes: B61D 41/00 Indicators for reserved seats; Warning or like signs; Devices or arrangements in connection with tickets, e.g. ticket holders; Holders for cargo tickets or the like
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/593 Recognising seat occupancy
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 5/221 Local indication of seats occupied in a facility, e.g. in a theatre
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 7/066 guiding along a path, e.g. evacuation path lighting strip
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/72 for local intradevice communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

A method in conjunction with a passenger guidance system guides a passenger to a passenger seat disposed in a vehicle. In order to guide a passenger quickly and reliably to a passenger seat which corresponds to his needs and is disposed in a vehicle, and to improve the flow of passengers, it is proposed to determine occupation states of passenger seats of the vehicle and to guide the passenger to an unoccupied passenger seat. For carrying out the method, a passenger guidance system is proposed which has at least one device for determining the occupation state of passenger seats arranged in a vehicle, at least one evaluation device which is configured to determine a destination to which a passenger is to be guided, and a transmission device by which data which are suitable for indicating a path to the destination can be transmitted to at least one display device.

Claims

1. A method for guiding a passenger to a passenger seat disposed in a vehicle, which comprises the steps of:

coupling a near-field communication device disposed in the vehicle to a mobile device of the passenger;

transmitting passenger-specific journey data from the mobile device to the near-field communication device;

synchronizing the passenger-specific journey data with data of a passenger seat management system and most suitable unoccupied passenger seats are determined for the passenger;

guiding the passenger to at least one of the most suitable unoccupied passenger seats;

calculating an occupancy level in each case for different vehicle areas before a next stop is reached and when calculating the occupancy levels, taking passenger movements to be expected at the next stop into account; and

guiding the passenger into one of cited different vehicle areas in which a lower occupancy level has been calculated in comparison with at least one other of the cited different vehicle areas.

2. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises determining occupation states of passenger seats of the vehicle.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein in the calculating of occupancy levels, occupancy levels of the passenger seats are calculated which fulfill seat specifications.

4. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises:

displaying unoccupied, unblocked and unreserved passenger seats to the passenger and offered for blocking by the passenger;

guiding the passenger to the at least one passenger seat that he or she has blocked.

5. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises taking into account preferences of the passenger that are stored in the passenger seat management system in a determination of the most suitable passenger seats for the passenger.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein after the coupling of the near-field communication device to the mobile device by means of the near-field communication device, performing the further steps of:

transmitting position data regarding at least one determined passenger seat to the mobile device; and

guiding the passenger by the mobile device on a basis of transmitted position data of the at least one of determined passenger seat.