Fully automated vehicle dispatching, monitoring and billing
First Claim
1. A system for controlling vehicles to provide transportation services, comprising:
- a database including records each documenting needed transportation services;
processing circuitry performing a dispatching process without human intervention, said dispatching process including reviewing said records, locating a record indicating a need for immediate transportation service, and instructing a vehicle to provide said transportation service;
said processing circuitry further performing a monitoring process without human intervention, said monitoring process including reviewing said records and vehicle activity information to identify transportation services which are not being adequately provided; and
communication circuitry forwarding instructions produced by said dispatching process from said processing circuitry to a vehicle;
said communication circuitry further providing vehicle activity information relating to said vehicle to said processing circuitry for review by said monitoring process.
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Reexamination
Accused Products
Abstract
A system for controlling vehicles to provide transportation services without need for human intervention. A database stores records each documenting needed transportation services. Processing circuitry (which may be one or several networked computers) reviews these records, locates records indicating a need for immediate transportation service, and instructs vehicles to provide the service. The processing circuitry also monitors vehicle activities by reviewing the records, and automatically obtained vehicle activity information, to identify transportation services which are not being adequately provided, and refer these to human dispatchers for special attention. A variety of methods for obtaining and updating vehicle activity information are disclosed, as are various applications for the system.
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Citations
38 Claims
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1. A system for controlling vehicles to provide transportation services, comprising:
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a database including records each documenting needed transportation services; processing circuitry performing a dispatching process without human intervention, said dispatching process including reviewing said records, locating a record indicating a need for immediate transportation service, and instructing a vehicle to provide said transportation service;
said processing circuitry further performing a monitoring process without human intervention, said monitoring process including reviewing said records and vehicle activity information to identify transportation services which are not being adequately provided; andcommunication circuitry forwarding instructions produced by said dispatching process from said processing circuitry to a vehicle;
said communication circuitry further providing vehicle activity information relating to said vehicle to said processing circuitry for review by said monitoring process. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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36. A system for controlling vehicles to provide transportation services, comprising:
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a database including records each documenting needed transportation services requested by customers; processing circuitry performing a system status management process without human intervention, said system status management process including reviewing said records and current vehicle activity information to determine and predict future needs for transportation services and comparing said future needs to expected availability of transportation services to identify future times at which available transportation services will not meet predicted needs, and generating, without human intervention, instructions for said vehicles directing said vehicles to identified locations so as to improve the availability of transportation services at future times. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38)
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Specification