VEHICLE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• US 20150339923A1
• Filed: 12/31/2013
• Published: 11/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/01/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bridgestone Mobility Solutions BV (Bridgestone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: TomTom Development Germany GmbH (TomTom NV), TomTom International BV (TomTom NV)
• Inventors: Knig, Felix Godafoss, Buve, Rijn, Diterwich, Ruud M.L.
• Granted Patent: US 10,262,535 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/127 to a central station ; Indicators in a central station
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/202 Dispatching vehicles on the basis of a location, e.g. taxi dispatching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

A vehicle request management system having a server (10) arranged to communicate with a plurality of vehicle requesting devices (12) and a plurality of vehicles (14), each being equipped with a device (200) having route planning and navigation functionality. Upon receipt of a vehicle request, the server allocates the request to an existing cluster of vehicle requests if it is related to the requests. If it is not related to the requests, the request is used to generate a new cluster. The relationship between new vehicle requests and those of existing clusters is assessed based on a proximity of a pick-up location associated with the new request to a pick-up location of an existing request. The relationship is assessed using a parameter that is selected based on a geographical and temporal density of vehicle requests in a region associated with the cluster. When the cluster meets a threshold in relation to age of an oldest request associated with it, or alternatively a maximum size threshold, the requests in the cluster are subjected to a matching process to match a vehicle to each request for fulfilling the request.

Claims

1. A method of managing vehicle requests at a server, the server having access to data indicative of a current location of each of a plurality of vehicles, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of vehicle requests at a server;

generating, by the server, one or more clusters and allocating each vehicle request to a given cluster, wherein said allocating a vehicle request to a given cluster comprises determining whether a vehicle request relates to an existing cluster, and, based on the determination, (i) allocating the vehicle request to an existing cluster or (ii) using the vehicle request to generate a new cluster and allocating the vehicle request to the new cluster; and

matching, by the server, a vehicle to each respective vehicle request within the or each cluster.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the server comprises communication means for communicating with a plurality of first devices, which are used to make a vehicle request, and a plurality of second devices associated with respective vehicles for fulfilling a submitted vehicle request.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein each first device has an associated location stored at the server, and wherein each vehicle request comprises at least a first location, the first location corresponding to the associated location.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the first device comprises a mobile device having location determining means arranged to determine the current geographical position of the device, and wherein each vehicle request comprises at least a first location, the first location corresponding to the current geographic position of the first device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the vehicle request comprises data indicative of a pickup location and one or more of:

a destination location;

a pick-up time;

one or more driver preferences;

one or more vehicle preferences;

a number of people to be picked up; and

a desired driver rating.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising associating data with each received vehicle request indicative of a time of receipt of the request at the server.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of generating the one or more clusters takes into account one or more of:

a geographical distribution of the plurality of vehicle requests determined using pick-up location data associated with each request;

a geographical distribution of the plurality of vehicles determined using current location data for the vehicles; and

a temporal distribution of the plurality of vehicle requests.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the vehicle requests associated with each generated cluster are considered to be related to one another based on one or more relationship measures.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the new cluster comprises initiating the cluster or merging a plurality of existing clusters.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising at least one of:

adding a received vehicle request to an existing cluster when the received request is considered to be related to one or more of the existing requests of the cluster based on one or more relationship measures;

using a received vehicle request to generate a new cluster when the vehicle request is not considered to be related to any of the existing requests of an existing cluster based on one or more relationship measures; and

using a received vehicle request to create a new cluster by merging a plurality of existing clusters when it is determined that the received vehicle request is considered to be related to one or more of the existing requests of each of the plurality of clusters based on one or more relationship measures,

wherein the one or more relationship measures include at least a measure indicative of a geographical relationship.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more relationship measures include at least a measure indicative of a range requirement to be met by pick-up location data associated with a vehicle request in order for the request to be added to the cluster.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more relationship measures used to assess the relationship between a vehicle request and one or more existing vehicle requests of an existing cluster are defined based upon one or more of:

a geographical distribution of the vehicle requests determined using locations associated with the vehicle requests in a geographical region based on one or more locations associated with the cluster;

a geographical distribution of the vehicles based on current location data of vehicles in a geographical region based on one or more locations associated with the cluster; and

a temporal distribution of vehicle requests in a geographic region based on one or more locations associated with the cluster.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching a vehicle to each vehicle request of a cluster comprises matching a vehicle to each vehicle request within a cluster only when the cluster is considered to be complete by reference to either one of a time related threshold and a threshold in relation to a number of vehicle requests comprised by the cluster.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching a vehicle to each vehicle request of a cluster comprises determining a set of vehicles suitable for fulfilling the requests of the cluster based on one or more criteria, wherein the criteria include at least geographical criteria.

16. The method of claim 15, comprising matching vehicles from the determined set of vehicles to the set of vehicle requests of the cluster based on estimated time of arrival of the vehicle at the first or pick-up location associated with each request and one or more further criteria, including one or more of:

user criteria;

driver criteria;

vehicle criteria;

system criteria and criteria based on historical driver behaviour and historical user behaviour.

17. The method of claim 1, comprising the server offering each vehicle request to the vehicle to which it has been matched.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of vehicles matched to the vehicle request of each cluster provides a set of primary order vehicles for fulfilling the vehicle requests of the cluster, wherein matching of each primary order vehicle to a vehicle request is carried out by reference to each other vehicle request of the cluster, and wherein the method further comprises allocating at least one second order vehicle to each request of the cluster by matching a vehicle to the request without consideration of other requests in the cluster.

19. The method of claim 18, comprising offering each vehicle request to the primary order vehicle for the request, and, if the request is not accepted in a given time, offering the request to the or each second order vehicle for the request.

22. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer readable instructions which, when executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to perform the method according to claim 1.

10. (canceled)

20-21. -21. (canceled)

23. A vehicle request management system, the system comprising a server having access to data indicative of a current location of each of a plurality of vehicles, the server comprising a processor arranged to:

receive a plurality of vehicle requests;

generate one or more clusters and allocate each vehicle request to a given cluster, wherein said allocating a vehicle request to a given cluster comprises determining whether a vehicle request relates to an existing cluster, and, based on the determination, (i) allocating the vehicle request to an existing cluster or (ii) using the vehicle request to generate a new cluster and allocating the vehicle request to the new cluster; and

match a vehicle to each respective vehicle request within the or each cluster.