Frequency Based Transit Trip Characterizations

• US 20160358470A1
• Filed: 09/29/2015
• Published: 12/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Pirwani, Imran A.
• Granted Patent: US 10,401,180 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3423 Multimodal routing, i.e. combining two or more modes of transportation, where the modes can be any of, e.g. driving, walking, cycling, public transport
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/36 Input/output arrangements for on-board computers
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3667 Display of a road map G01C21/3614 takes precedence; guidance using 3D or perspective road maps G01C21/3635
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0125 Traffic data processing
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/123 indicating the position of vehicles, e.g. scheduled vehicles; Managing passenger vehicles circulating according to a fixed timetable, e.g. buses, trains, tramstransmission of navigation instructions to vehicles G08G1/0968

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a map application that identifies a transit route between a starting location and a destination location. The transit route, in some embodiments, comprises a set of transit legs that each is serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line and a set of walking distances. The map application of some embodiments generates a frequency of departures for transit vehicles of each transit line in the set of transit lines from a first transit station of the transit leg that is serviced by the transit line. The map application of some such embodiments further generates a frequency of departures for the entire transit route.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application executable by at least one processing unit of a device, the application comprising sets of instructions for:

identifying a transit route between a starting location and a destination location, the transit route comprising a set of transit legs that each is serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line, and a set of walking distances; and

generating a frequency of departures for (i) transit vehicles of each transit line in the set of transit lines from a first transit station of the transit leg serviced by the transit line, and (ii) the entire transit route.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for, before generating the frequency of departures, categorizing each transit line that services a transit leg of the transit route as a high frequency transit line.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 2, wherein the set of instructions for categorizing each transit line as a high frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing each transit line as a high frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station on average at least once every certain period of time.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for generating the frequency of departures comprises a set of instructions for sending the identified transit route to a map service running on a set of servers, wherein the map service generates the frequency of departures.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for generating a frequency of departures for a transit line comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a plurality of departure times of the transit line at a particular transit station;

generating a sequence of time intervals between each successive pair of departure times; and

determining how to express the generated sequence in terms of the frequency of departures of the transit line.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5, wherein the set of instructions for generating the frequency of departures for the transit line further comprises a set of instructions for, after generating the sequence of time intervals, sorting the generated sequence.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5, wherein the set of instructions for said determining comprises a set of instructions for determining to express the generated sequence with one of an exact time, an approximate time, and a time range.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5, wherein the set of instructions for determining how to express the generated sequence comprises sets of instructions for:

determining whether the sequence is expressible with an exact or approximate time; and

when the sequence is neither expressible with the exact time, nor with the approximate time, determining whether the sequence is expressible with a time range.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the exact time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a small threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the time range comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a pair of values from a set of pairs of Gaussian distributions expresses the sequence of time intervals.

11. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the approximate time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a large threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.

12. An electronic device comprising:

a set of processing units for executing sets of instructions; and

a non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application executable by at least one of the processing units of the device, the application comprising sets of instructions for;

identifying a transit route between a starting location and a destination location, the transit route comprising a set of transit legs that each is serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line, and a set of walking distances; and

generating a frequency of departures for (i) transit vehicles of each transit line in the set of transit lines from a first transit station of the transit leg serviced by the transit line, and (ii) the entire transit route.

13. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for, before generating the frequency of departures, categorizing each transit line that services a transit leg of the transit route as a high frequency transit line.

14. The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the set of instructions for categorizing each transit line as a high frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing each transit line as a high frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station on average at least once every certain period of time.

15. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the set of instructions for generating the frequency of departures for the entire transit route comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a set of departure times for each transit line at a first transit station of a transit leg that is serviced by the transit line;

receiving a trip duration for (i) each transit line that services a transit leg of the transit route, and (ii) each walking portion of the transit route;

generating a sequence of departure times from the starting location; and

determining how to express the generated sequence in terms of the frequency of departures for the entire transit route.

25. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the set of instructions for generating a frequency of departures for a transit line comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a plurality of departure times of the transit line at a particular transit station;

generating a sequence of time intervals between each successive pair of departure times; and

determining how to express the generated sequence in terms of the frequency of departures of the transit line.

26. The electronic device of claim 15, wherein each departure time in the generated sequence is a latest departure time from the starting location in order to make a temporally feasible and independent transit trip to the destination location.

27. The electronic device of claim 15, wherein the set of instructions for generating the sequence of departure times comprises sets of instructions for:

identifying a latest departure time in a current leg for each feasible departure time of a next leg of the transit route, wherein the identified departure time in the current leg allows to reach the next leg on time to depart at the feasible departure time of the next leg;

generating a link between the identified departure time in the current leg and the feasible departure time of the next leg;

from a set of departure times at the starting location, removing each departure time that does not have a unique path to a particular departure time to the last transit leg of the transit trip; and

generating the sequence of departure times from the starting location based on a remaining departure times in the set of departure times at the starting location.

28. The electronic device of claim 15, wherein the set of instructions for determining how to express the generated sequence comprises sets of instructions for:

determining whether the sequence is expressible with an exact time or an approximate time; and

when the sequence is neither expressible with the exact time, nor with the approximate time, determining whether the sequence is expressible with a time range.

29. The electronic device of claim 28, wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the exact time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a small threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.

16-24. -24. (canceled)