Transit Incident Reporting

• US 20170010118A1
• Filed: 09/23/2016
• Published: 01/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Grimault, Julien, Teich, Tara A., Hajj, Usama M., Verosub, Ellis M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,302,442 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 21/3492 employing speed data or traffic data, e.g. real-time or historical traffic control systems for road vehicles involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3694 Output thereof on a road map
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/012 from other sources than vehicle or roadside beacons, e.g. mobile networks
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0133 for classifying traffic situation
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0141 for traffic information dissemination
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72403 with means for local support of applications that increase the functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method for displaying on a device incident reports regarding transit lines and stations. Through a map application executing on the device, the method of some embodiments receives an incident report regarding a transit line or station of interest. The method displays the incident report in an incident reporting display area that is accessible on the device without the opening of the map application. The incident report in some embodiments includes a set of zero or more incidents associated with the transit line or station. In some embodiments, a reported incident can be an incident about the overall transit line, a portion of the transit line, or one or more stations along the transit line. A station is a location along a transit line at which a transit vehicle that travels the transit line stops. In some embodiments, the transit vehicle passengers can typically get on or off the transit vehicle at a transit station.

Claims

1. A method of providing reports on a device regarding incidents on transit lines, the method comprising:

through a map application executing on the device, receiving identification of a transit line of interest; and

displaying information about a set of incidents associated with the transit line in an incident reporting display area that is accessible on the device without opening of the map application.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing an affordance to view the incident reporting display area without opening of the map application.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the device is a mobile device, and the affordance is accessible through a display page of the mobile device that is generated by an operating system of the device.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the display page is the home page of the mobile device.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

through the map application executing on the device, receiving identification of a plurality of transit lines of interest; and

in the incident reporting display area, displaying information about a set of incidents for each transit line of interest that has at least one associated incident.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein displaying information for each transit line of interest comprises:

in the incident reporting display area,

displaying a condensed list of transit lines with associated incident information;

upon selection of the condensed list, displaying an expanded list that provides additional information about at least two sets of incidents associates with at least two transit lines of interest.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein displaying the information for each transit line of interest comprises:

in the incident reporting display area, identifying information about one set of incidents about a first transit line, while specifying that no incidents exist for a second transit line.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

upon selection of the incident reporting display area, opening the map application to present an incident display pane to provide additional information about the set of incidents associated with the transit line.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the incident display pane is displayed over a map that contains the transit line.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the incident reporting display area is a display area created by an operating system of the device and the map application provides to the operating system content for display in the incident reporting display area.

11. The method of claim 10,

wherein the operating system requests the map application to provide content for display in the incident reporting display area whenever an operating system affordance is used to request display of the incident reporting display area;

and

wherein in response to the request, the map application identifies any transit line of interest, collects incident information about any transit line of interest, generates content for display in the incident reporting display area to identify the set of incidents for each transit line of interest with at least one incident, and provides the content to the operating system for display in the incident reporting display area.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the transit line of interest is a transit line that has been selected through the map application as being as a transit line of interest by a user.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the device is a mobile device, and the transit line of interest is a transit line that the map application has previously identified as a transit line that has been used by the mobile device for more than a particular number of times.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the transit line of interest is a transit line that has been used more than a particular number of times by the map application to provide navigation instructions as the mobile device navigates a route that includes the transit line.

15. A mobile device comprising:

a non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application for displaying transit lines on a map, and an operating system for providing reports regarding incidents on transit lines;

a set of processing units for executing the operating system and the map application; and

the operating system comprising instructions for;

receiving request to display a page that includes a transit incident reporting display area that is accessible on the mobile device without opening of the map application;

directing the map application to identify any incident associated with any transit line that has been identified as a transit line of interest by the map application; and

in the transit incident reporting display area, displaying incident information provided by the map application for a set transit lines.

16. The mobile device of claim 15, wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for providing an affordance to view the incident reporting display area without opening of the map application.

17. The mobile device of claim 16, wherein the device is a mobile device, and the affordance is accessible through a home page of the mobile device that is generated by an operating system of the device.

18. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application for displaying transit lines, and an operating system for providing reports on a mobile device regarding incidents on transit lines, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving input requesting display of a page that displays a transit incident reporting display area that is accessible on the mobile device without opening of the map application;

receiving identification of a transit line of interest through a map application executing on the mobile device; and

displaying information about a set of incidents associated with the transit line in an incident reporting display area that is accessible on the mobile device without opening of the map application.

19. A non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein

the set of incidents includes 0 or more incidents,

the incident display area specifying no incidents exist for the transit line when the set of incidents includes 0 incidents;

and

the incident display area listing at least one incident for the transit line when the set of incidents includes 1 or more incidents.

20. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim of claim 18, wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for providing an affordance to view the incident reporting display area without opening of the map application.