Integrated system and method for inducing, brokering and managing alternative transportation modes for commuters and generating commute statistics

• US 20060178949A1
• Filed: 02/06/2006
• Published: 08/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Paul Thomas Mcgrath
• Original Assignee: Paul Thomas Mcgrath
• Inventors: McGrath, Paul Thomas
• Application Number:
  US11/348,809
• Publication Number:
  US 20060178949A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/26 Government or public services business processes related to the transportation industry G06Q50/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/30 Transportation; Communications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083

Abstract

A system is provided for brokering commuter transactions initiated by individuals grouped by association and for populating individual commutes schedules and tallying incentive points earned by those individuals. The system includes a network server and data repository connected to a data network, the server including software for providing services to groups of individuals, and a plurality of network nodes having access to the network, the nodes operated by respective individuals of each group for the purpose of offering rides and for searching rides.

Claims

1. A system for brokering commuter transactions initiated by individuals grouped by association and for populating individual commutes schedules and tallying incentive points earned by those individuals comprising:

a network server and data repository connected to a data network, the server including software for providing services to groups of individuals;

a plurality of network nodes having access to the network, the nodes operated by respective individuals of each group for the purpose of offering rides and for searching rides.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the network is the Internet network.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is a web server.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the individuals are employees, groups of which define those employees of a company or business.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the individuals are students, groups of which define students attending a university campus.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the services are web services defined by web service description language.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the web services include ride publishing, ride searching, transaction brokering, schedule population, statistics generation, and point tallying.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein said respective individuals of each group access said web services utilizing an internet home page specific to each group.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein said web services utilized by each group include ride publishing, ride searching, transaction brokering, schedule population, statistics generation, and point tallying involving only individuals specific to each group.

10. A software suite for brokering commuter transactions initiated by individuals grouped by association and for populating of individual commute schedules and tallying incentive points earned by those individuals comprising:

a first portion thereof for providing services to the individuals;

a second portion thereof for enabling definition and creation of those services; and

a third portion thereof for registering groups and for managing local parameters of groups registered.

11. The software suite of claim 10 practiced on the Internet network and on a sub-network connected to the Internet network.

12. The software suite of claim 10, wherein commuter transactions include acceptance and confirmation of a ride request submitted in response to an offered ride, the acceptance thereof a function of the software.

13. The software suite of claim 12 wherein an offered ride is limited in its offering to individuals within the same group as that of the offeror.

14. The software suite of claim 10, wherein commuter transactions include acceptance and confirmation of a ride request submitted in response to an offered ride, the acceptance thereof a function of the individual offering he ride.

15. The software suite of claim 14 wherein an offered ride is limited in its offering to individuals within the same group as that of the offeror.

16. The software suite of claim 10, wherein the individual commute schedules are automatically populated as a direct result of transactions recorded by the software.

17. The software suite of claim 10, wherein the incentive points are exchangeable for one or a combination of cash and discounts on third-party offered services or products.

18. The software suite of claim 10, wherein the first portion thereof has runtime access to one or more employee databases for the purpose of synchronization of data updated to those databases with the network database.

19. An electronic system for the managing commute information, said electronic system comprising:

a first computer system, said first computer system coupled to a global-area computer network, said first computer system executing instructions for implementing functionalities, said functionalities including;

receiving ride offers entered from members of a group via a global area computer network;

publishing ride offers received from members of a group to other members of that same group via a global-area computer network; and

receiving ride requests entered from members of a group in response to published ride offers from members of that same group via a global-area computer network.

20. The electronic system of claim 19 wherein said functionalities are implemented for a plurality of groups, wherein the members of said groups are limited to viewing information relative to members within their own group.

21. The electronic system of claim 19 wherein said first computer system further comprises instructions for automatically generating email to a first member of a group indicating that a ride request has been received from a second member of that same group in response to said first member'"'"'s published ride offer.

22. The electronic system of claim 19, wherein said functionalities further include:

receiving commuting information from members of a group via a global-area computer network; and

compilation and publishing of commute statistics for a group, wherein the group'"'"'s commute statistics are able to be viewed over a global-area computer network only by members of that group.

23. The electronic system of claim 22, wherein said functionalities further include:

calculating the savings realized by a member of a group based upon the received commuting information; and

publishing the savings calculated.

24. The electronic system of claim 20 wherein said functionalities further include:

receiving alternative commute mode information from members of a group via a global-area computer network;

calculating points for each member of a group based upon the received alternative commute mode information;

choosing winners of prizes using a lotto based system, wherein each member'"'"'s probability of winning is based upon the number of points of that member.