ACTIVE TRAFFIC AND DEMAND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
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Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods for providing incentives for the public to travel during time windows and routes that help alleviate traffic congestion. The systems described herein include at least two components: a computer server software system that includes various algorithms and database sub-systems; and a mobile device application. Generally, a user may enter an origin, destination, and preferred time of travel for an intended trip into the mobile device application, which transmits the information to a remote server. The server computes a route for the trip and provides the user with available incentives for traveling the route at one or more departure time windows. The user'"'"'s mobile device transmits GPS data to the server, which allows the server to verify whether the user has traveled the route during the specified time window. If so, the server then provides the incentive to the user via the user'"'"'s mobile device or through email.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1-13. -13. (canceled)
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14. A computer implemented method for managing the flow of traffic, comprising:
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receiving an origin and destination location pair and a preferred travel time from a user; determining a route between the origin and the destination; determining multiple departure time windows proximate in time to the preferred travel time, wherein each of the departure time windows corresponds to a time interval when the user is to depart from the origin and travel along the route toward the destination; determining a user incentive for each of the multiple departure time windows; sending the route, the multiple departure time windows and their associated incentives for display; receiving from the user a selection of the route and one of the departure time windows and its associated incentive; receiving location information from the user during the user'"'"'s travel along at least a portion of the route; verifying that the user has departed from the origin during the selected departure time window and traveled along at least a portion of the route thereafter; and sending the incentive to the user. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for performing a procedure to manage the flow of traffic, the procedure comprising:
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receiving an origin and destination location pair and a preferred travel time from a user; determining a route between the origin and the destination; determining multiple departure time windows proximate in time to the preferred travel time, wherein each of the departure time windows corresponds to a time interval when the user is to depart from the origin and travel along the route toward the destination; determining a user incentive for each of the multiple departure time windows; sending the route, the multiple departure time windows and their associated incentives for display; receiving from the user a selection of the route and one of the departure time windows and its associated incentive; receiving location information from the user during the user'"'"'s travel along at least a portion of the route; verifying that the user has departed from the origin during the selected departure time window and traveled along at least a portion of the route thereafter; and sending the incentive to the user.
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Specification