Frequency based transit trip characterizations

• US 10,401,180 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2015
• Issued: 09/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Pirwani, Imran A., Roberts, Stanley E., Hodge, David, Sabol, Cameron, Hajj, Usama M., Leighton, Ian, Tesov, Alexander, Fischer, Kaspar, Galloway, Curtis
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Bao Long T
• Application Number:
  US14/869,699
• Publication Number:
  US 20160358470A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,435 Days
• Field of Search: 701117, 701414, 701423, 701433, 701483
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3423 Multimodal routing, i.e. combining two or more modes of transportation, where the modes can be any of, e.g. driving, walking, cycling, public transport
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/36 Input/output arrangements for on-board computers
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3667 Display of a road map G01C21/3614 takes precedence; guidance using 3D or perspective road maps G01C21/3635
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0125 Traffic data processing
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/123 indicating the position of vehicles, e.g. scheduled vehicles; Managing passenger vehicles circulating according to a fixed timetable, e.g. buses, trains, tramstransmission of navigation instructions to vehicles G08G1/0968

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a map application that identifies a transit route between a starting location and a destination location. The transit route, in some embodiments, comprises a set of transit legs that each is serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line and a set of walking distances. The map application of some embodiments generates a frequency of departures for transit vehicles of each transit line in the set of transit lines from a first transit station of the transit leg that is serviced by the transit line. The map application of some such embodiments further generates a frequency of departures for the entire transit route.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application executable by at least one processing unit of a device, the map application comprising sets of instructions for:

inputting a destination location;

identifying a position of the device based on data input from a position sensor;

identifying a navigation mode based in part on the position of the device;

if the navigation mode is a transit navigation mode, the map application further comprises sets of instructions for;

identifying a transit route between a starting location based on a position of the device and the destination location, the transit route comprising a set of transit legs, each serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line, and a set of walking distances;

categorizing the transit line as one of a first category and a second category based on a frequency of departure of transit vehicles of the transit line;

when the transit line is categorized as the first category, displaying a departure schedule in a frequency of departures format for (i) transit vehicles of the transit line from a first transit station of the transit leg serviced by the transit line, and (ii) an entire transit route; and

when the transit line is categorized as the second category, displaying the departure schedule in an absolute time format for the transit vehicles and the entire transit route.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first category is associated with a high frequency transit line and the second category is associated with a low frequency transit line, and wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as one of the high frequency transit line and the low frequency transit line.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 2, wherein the set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station on average at least once every certain period of time, and wherein the set of instructions of categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station of average less than once every certain period of time.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule comprises a set of instructions for:

sending the identified transit route to a map service running on a set of servers;

receiving a frequency of departures from the map service; and

displaying the departure schedule by including the received frequency of departures.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a plurality of departure times of the transit line at a particular transit station;

generating a sequence of time intervals between each successive pair of departure times; and

determining how to express the generated sequence in terms of the frequency of departures of the transit line.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5, wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule further comprises a set of instructions for, after generating the sequence of time intervals, sorting the generated sequence.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5, wherein the set of instructions for said determining comprises a set of instructions for determining to express the generated sequence with one of an exact time, an approximate time, and a time range.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5, wherein the set of instructions for determining how to express the generated sequence comprises sets of instructions for:

determining whether the sequence is expressible with an exact or approximate time; and

when the sequence is neither expressible with the exact time, nor with the approximate time, determining whether the sequence is expressible with a time range.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the exact time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a small threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the time range comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a pair of values from a set of pairs of Gaussian distributions expresses the sequence of time intervals.

11. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the approximate time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a large threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.

12. An electronic device comprising:

a set of processing units for executing sets of instructions; and

a non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application executable by at least one of the processing units of the device, the map application comprising sets of instructions for;

device;

inputting a destination location;

identifying a position of the device based on data input from a position sensor;

identifying a navigation mode based in part on motion data from a motion sensor of the if the navigation mode is a transit navigation mode, the map application further comprises sets of instructions for;

identifying a transit route between a starting location and a destination location, the transit route comprising a set of transit legs that each is serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line;

categorizing the transit line as one of a first category and a second category based on a frequency of departure of transit vehicles of the transit line;

when the transit line is categorized as the first category, displaying a departure schedule in a frequency of departures format for (i) transit vehicles of the transit line from a first transit station of the transit leg serviced by the transit line, and (ii) the entire transit route; and

when the transit line is categorized as the second category, displaying the departure schedule in an absolute time format for the transit vehicles and the entire transit route.

13. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the first category is associated with the high frequency transit line and the second category is associated with the low frequency transit line, and wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as one of the high frequency transit line and the low frequency transit line.

14. The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station on average at least once every certain period of time, and wherein the set of instructions of categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station of average less than once every certain period of time.

15. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule for the entire transit route comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a set of departure times for each transit line at a first transit station of a transit leg that is serviced by the transit line;

receiving a trip duration for (i) each transit line that services a transit leg of the transit route, and (ii) each walking portion of the transit route;

generating a sequence of departure times from the starting location; and

determining how to express the generated sequence in terms of the frequency of departures for the entire transit route.

16. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule for a transit line comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a plurality of departure times of the transit line at a particular transit station;

generating a sequence of time intervals between each successive pair of departure times; and

determining how to express the generated sequence in terms of the frequency of departures of the transit line.

17. The electronic device of claim 15, wherein each departure time in the generated sequence is a latest departure time from the starting location in order to make a temporally feasible and independent transit trip to the destination location.

18. The electronic device of claim 15, wherein the set of instructions for generating the sequence of departure times comprises sets of instructions for:

identifying a latest departure time in a current leg for each feasible departure time of a next leg of the transit route, wherein the identified departure time in the current leg allows to reach the next leg on time to depart at the feasible departure time of the next leg;

generating a link between the identified departure time in the current leg and the feasible departure time of the next leg;

from a set of departure times at the starting location, removing each departure time that does not have a unique path to a particular departure time to the last transit leg of the transit trip; and

generating the sequence of departure times from the starting location based on a remaining departure times in the set of departure times at the starting location.

19. The electronic device of claim 15, wherein the set of instructions for determining how to express the generated sequence comprises sets of instructions for:

determining whether the sequence is expressible with an exact time or an approximate time; and

when the sequence is neither expressible with the exact time, nor with the approximate time, determining whether the sequence is expressible with a time range.

20. The electronic device of claim 19, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the exact time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a small threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.