Location-based queuing
First Claim
1. A method of queuing to a plurality of mobile agents, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) receiving information regarding the location of one of said mobile agents and assigning said mobile agent to one of a plurality of location zones based on said received information;
(b) maintaining a plurality of location-specific queues of requests, each location-specific queue having one or more of said location zones associated therewith, and each location-specific queue being serviced only by those mobile agents whose assigned location zone matches a location zone of that location-specific queue;
(c) receiving a request for the services of a mobile agent, said request being associated with a request location;
(d) determining an optimum queue for said request from among said plurality of location-specific queues based at least in part on a comparison between said request location and a location zone associated with said optimum queue, subject to a servicing constraint that a queue can only be selected as said optimum queue if at least one agent is currently servicing said queue.
6 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Queuing to a mobile agents is accomplished by assigning each mobile agents to one of a plurality of location zones based on information received from a tracking system, and maintaining a plurality of location-specific queues of requests, each location-specific queue having one or more of the location zones associated therewith, and each location-specific queue being serviced only by those mobile agents whose assigned location zone matches a location zone of that location-specific queue. On receiving a location-based request for the services of a mobile agent, an optimum queue is selected for the request from among the plurality of location-specific queues based at least in part on a comparison between the request location and a location zone associated with the optimum queue, subject to a servicing constraint that a queue can only be selected as the optimum queue if at least one agent is currently servicing the queue.
34 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A method of queuing to a plurality of mobile agents, the method comprising the steps of:
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(a) receiving information regarding the location of one of said mobile agents and assigning said mobile agent to one of a plurality of location zones based on said received information; (b) maintaining a plurality of location-specific queues of requests, each location-specific queue having one or more of said location zones associated therewith, and each location-specific queue being serviced only by those mobile agents whose assigned location zone matches a location zone of that location-specific queue; (c) receiving a request for the services of a mobile agent, said request being associated with a request location; (d) determining an optimum queue for said request from among said plurality of location-specific queues based at least in part on a comparison between said request location and a location zone associated with said optimum queue, subject to a servicing constraint that a queue can only be selected as said optimum queue if at least one agent is currently servicing said queue. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium encoding instructions which when executed in a computing system are effective to cause said computing system to perform a method of queuing to a plurality of mobile agents, by:
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(a) receiving information regarding the location of one of said mobile agents and assigning said mobile agent to one of a plurality of location zones based on said received information; (b) maintaining a plurality of location-specific queues of requests, each location-specific queue having one or more of said location zones associated therewith, and each location-specific queue being serviced only by those mobile agents whose assigned location zone matches a location zone of that location-specific queue; (c) receiving a request for the services of a mobile agent, said request being associated with a request location; (d) determining an optimum queue for said request from among said plurality of location-specific queues based at least in part on a comparison between said request location and a location zone associated with said optimum queue, subject to a servicing constraint that a queue can only be selected as said optimum queue if at least one agent is currently servicing said queue.
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18. A queuing system for queuing to a plurality of mobile agents, comprising:
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(a) a mobile agent resource record which records an assignment of one of a plurality of location zones to one of said mobile agents based on information received regarding the location of said mobile agent; (b) a plurality of location-specific queues of requests, each location-specific queue having one or more of said location zones associated therewith, and each location-specific queue being serviced only by those mobile agents whose assigned location zone matches a location zone of that location-specific queue; (c) a request record which records a received request for the services of a mobile agent, together with a request location associated with said request; (d) a queue allocation system which is configured to determine an optimum queue for said request from among said plurality of location-specific queues based at least in part on a comparison between said request location and a location zone associated with said optimum queue, subject to a servicing constraint that a queue can only be selected as said optimum queue if at least one agent is currently servicing said queue.
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Specification