METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING LOCATION SPECIFIC INFORMATION

• US 20080183485A1
• Filed: 01/18/2008
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Drabble, Christopher Peter, Noble, Gary Paul
• Granted Patent: US 10,318,965 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing location specific information. Event data pertaining to an event is received from an event reporting system that has gathered the event data from a data gathering means. The event data includes location identification data, event type data, and event description data. At least one geofence associated with the location identification data is identified from the location identification data in the received event data. Each geofence of the at least one geofence has a geometric shape located within a geographic area. A topic associated with the event type data and associated with the identified at least one geofence is identified. Subscribers having a subscription to the topic in association with the geographic area are identified. The subscription entitles the subscribers to be notified about events pertaining to the topic in association with the selected geographic area. The event description data is published to each subscriber.

Claims

1. A method for providing location specific information, said method configured to be implemented in a data processing network, said method comprising:

receiving event data pertaining to an event from an event reporting system that has gathered the event data from a data gathering means, wherein the event data comprises location identification data from which a location of the event may be determined, event type data specifying a category of the event, and event description data that describes the event;

identifying, from the location identification data in the received event data, at least one geofence associated with the location identification data, wherein each geofence of the at least one geofence has a geometric shape located within a geographic area;

identifying a topic associated with the event type data and associated with the identified at least one geofence;

identifying at least one subscriber having a subscription to the topic in association with the geographic area, said subscription entitling the at least one subscriber is to be notified about events pertaining to the topic in association with the selected geographic area; and

publishing the event description data to each subscriber of the identified at least one subscriber.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein the method further comprises receiving subscriptions to topics in association with specified geographic areas by a plurality of subscribers and storing the subscriptions to said topics in a data store of the data processing network, and

wherein said identifying at least one subscriber comprises:

matching the topic pertaining to the event type data to the topics of the store subscriptions to identify one or more subscribers of the plurality of subscribers having subscribed to the topic; and

ascertaining that the at least one subscriber consists of the identified one or more subscribers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the data store stores a subscriber profile for each subscriber of the plurality of subscribers, and wherein the stored subscriber profile for each subscriber comprises a delivery means independently selected by each subscriber, wherein the identified at least one subscriber comprises at least two subscribers, and wherein said publishing comprises publishing the event description data to each subscriber of the at least two subscribers via the delivery means independently selected by each subscriber of the at least two subscribers.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the data store stores a subscriber profile for each subscriber of the plurality of subscribers, wherein the stored subscriber profile for a first subscriber of the at identified least one subscriber comprises a daily time interval such that the first subscriber is entitled to be notified about events pertaining to the topic in association with the selected geographic area and occurring during the daily time interval, and wherein the method comprises:

determining that the event has occurred during the daily time interval; and

publishing the event description data to the first subscriber in response to said determining that the event has occurred during the daily time interval.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a hierarchical topic tree comprises topics hierarchically sequenced in a tree structure, wherein the hierarchical topic tree is stored in a data store of the data processing network, wherein associations between the topics in the hierarchical topic tree and geofence areas are stored in the data store, and wherein said identifying the topic comprises searching the hierarchical topic tree to determine the topic from the associations stored in the data store.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the topic in association with the geographic area is road events occurring in a specified portion of the geographic area, and wherein the road events are selected from the group consisting of road accidents, road works, and road closures.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said receiving event data comprises receiving the event data by a queue manager from a plurality of disparate event reporting systems, and wherein each disparate event reporting system comprises an adapter component that formats the event data into a format compatible with the queue manager.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises parsing the received event data to determine X and Y coordinates of the location of the event from the location identification data, the event type data, and the event description data.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said identifying the at least one geofence comprises:

performing a lookup in a lookup table in a data store of the data processing network to identify one or more geofences in which the determined X and Y coordinates are located; and

ascertaining that the at least one geofence consists of the identified one or more geofences.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein a geofence of the at least one geofence forms a virtual boundary delimiting portions of a road.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the location identification data comprises a unique identifier associated with a stationary object at a location of the data gathering means.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the stationary object is a set of traffic lights.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one geofence comprises a first geofence and a second geofence which overlap each other in an overlap area, and wherein the location of the event specified by the location identification data is in the overlap area.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the geometric shape of a geofence of the at least one geofence consists of a point.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the geometric shape of a geofence of the at least one geofence consists of a line.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the geometric shape of a geofence of the at least one geofence consists of a two dimensional shape.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the geometric shape of a geofence of the at least one geofence consists of a three dimensional shape.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the geometric shape of a geofence of the at least one geofence is configured to grow and shrink dynamically.

19. A computer program product loadable into an internal memory of a digital computer, said computer program product comprising software code configured to be executed on a processor of the digital computer to perform the method of claim 1.

20. A processing server comprising an event broker, said event broker comprising software code configured to be executed on a processor of a digital computer to perform the method of claim 1, said data processing network comprising the processing server.