System and method for collecting, processing, and distributing information to promote safe driving

• US 6,714,894 B1
• Filed: 09/13/2001
• Issued: 03/30/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Edriving Fleet LLC (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Merritt Applications, Inc.
• Inventors: Merritt, Marc, Tobey, Peter W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoff, Marc S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): SUAREZ, FELIX E
• Application Number:
  US09/951,654
• Time in Patent Office: 929 Days
• Field of Search: 434/62, 434/65, 340/438, 340/439, 702/109, 702/120, 702/177, 702/179, 702/182, 702/183, 702/188, 702/190
• US Class Current: 702/188
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A system and methods that allow for the collection, processing, and distribution of information to promote driver safety. In an illustrative implementation, a computing application is provided that accepts driver/vehicle accident or incident information, standardizes the driver/vehicle information, identifies critical events, assigns adaptable risk levels to the driver/vehicle information, and processes the driver/vehicle information to recommend customized remediation to the drivers in an effort to reduce risk levels and promote safer driving. The computing application also generates reports indicative of driver/vehicle behavior, remediation progress risk levels, critical events and information relating to the use of the exemplary computing application. The exemplary computing application is preferably Web-enabled to allow remote access by drivers and administrators.

Claims

1. A system to promote safer driving comprising:

a data store that stores raw and formatted event data representative of at least one of driver events and vehicle events;

a business rules engine that applies predetermined business rules to said driver/vehicle event data, said business rules comprising instructions to process said driver/vehicle event data in accordance with predetermined safety paradigms to produce processed driver/vehicle safety data; and

a remediation and monitoring system that cooperates with said business rules engine to process said processed driver/vehicle safety data to determine remediation measures to offer to respective drivers and to monitor compliance by said drivers with the offered remediation measures.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein said driver and vehicle events comprise at least one of an accident, a traffic violation, and remediation completion by drivers.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein said data store includes driver/vehicle profiles having information about drivers/vehicles that are to be monitored by said system.

4. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising a data standardization module that processes disparate raw and formatted driver and/or vehicle event data stored in said data store to homogenize said raw and formatted driver and/or vehicle event data to at least one pre-defined format.

5. The system as recited as recited in claim 4, further comprising a sorting module that separates formatted driver/vehicle event data based on pre-defined criteria.

6. The system as recited in claim 5, wherein said sorting module sorts formatted driver/vehicle event data into categories including at least one of an overdue measure, an expired measure, a malfeasance, and a misfeasance.

7. The system as recited in claim 6, wherein said remediation and monitoring system further communicates reporting information about said sorted driver/vehicle events to a pre-defined list of recipients and/or an organizational hierarchy.

8. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein said reporting information is electronically communicated through a communications network comprising at least one of a fixed-wire LAN, a wireless LAN, a fixed-wire WAN, a wireless WAN, a fixed-wire intranet, a wireless intranet, a fixed-wire extranet, a wireless extranet, cellular telephony, wireless paging, the Internet, and the wireless Internet.

9. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein said business rules engine assigns risk values to and identifies critical events for said driver/vehicle events, said risk values representative of the degree of required remediation in accordance with said predetermined driving safety paradigms.

10. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein said remediation and monitoring system further processes said processed driver/vehicle safety data to ascertain if remediation and/or monitoring is to be offered in accordance with said predetermined safety paradigms.

11. The system as recited in claim 10, wherein said remediation and monitoring system electronically distributes, tracks, and manages remediation measures to drivers using a communications network, said communications network comprising at least one of a fixed-wire LAN, a wireless LAN, a fixed-wire WAN, a wireless WAN, a fixed-wire intranet, a wireless intranet, a fixed-wire extranet, a wireless extranet, cellular telephony, wireless paging, the Internet, and the wireless Internet.

12. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein said remediation and monitoring system electronically updates said driver/vehicle profiles to include new driver/vehicle events processed by said business rule engine.

13. The system as recited in claim 12, wherein said remediation and monitoring system electronically communicates updates to participating users using a communications network comprising any of a fixed-wire LAN, a wireless LAN, a fixed-wire WAN, a wireless WAN, a fixed-wire intranet, a wireless intranet, a fixed-wire extranet, a wireless extranet, cellular telephony, wireless paging, the Internet, and the wireless Internet.

14. The system as recited in claim 13, wherein said participating users comprise at least one of administrator of driver fleets, drivers in a fleet, administrators of vehicle fleets, and vehicle operators.

15. The system as recited in claim 4, further comprising a reporting module capable of processing said driver/vehicle event data and correlating said driver/vehicle event data to stored driver/vehicle profiles to generate reports including at least one of trend analysis, statistical analysis, forecasting analysis, averaging analysis, and performance analysis.

16. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein said reporting module electronically communicates said reports to participating users using a communications network comprising any of a fixed-wire LAN, a wireless LAN, a fixed-wire WAN, a wireless WAN, a fixed-wire intranet, a wireless intranet, a fixed-wire extranet, a wireless extranet, cellular telephony, wireless paging, the Internet, and the wireless Internet.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein said remediation measures comprise driver safety education materials and tests.

18. A method to monitor drivers events in an effort to promote safer driving amongst a group of drivers, comprising the steps of:

receiving driver/vehicle event data identifying at least one of a driver/vehicle accident and traffic infraction for respective drivers in said group of drivers;

processing said driver/vehicle event data according to pre-defined instructions to assign a risk level and critical events to said respective drivers for storage in driver profiles for said respective drivers;

offering targeted remediation measures to drivers having at least a pre-determined risk level and/or critical event; and

monitoring compliance with said targeted remediation measures by said drivers having at least said predetermined risk level and/or critical event.

19. The method as recited in claim 18, comprising further the step of standardizing said driver/vehicle event data to at least one predefined format.

20. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein said processing step comprises the steps of assigning points to said driver/vehicle accident and traffic infractions and setting said risk levels at predetermined point levels for said respective drivers.

21. The method as recited in claim 18, further comprising the step of providing said first and second set of pre-determined risk-levels and/or critical events to participating users.

22. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein said targeted remediation measures are determined based on the driver/vehicle accident and traffic infraction data collected for a particular driver.

23. The method as recited in claim 18, comprising the further step of generating reports about said driver profiles for electronic communication to at least one of an administrator of said group of drivers, respective drivers in said group of drivers, and an administrator of a vehicle fleet driven by said group of drivers using a communications network comprising any of a fixed-wire LAN, a wireless LAN, a fixed-wire WAN, a wireless WAN, a fixed-wire intranet, a wireless intranet, a fixed-wire extranet, a wireless extranet;

cellular telephony, wireless paging, the Internet, and the wireless Internet.

24. The method of claim 18, wherein said targeted remediation measures comprise driver safety education materials and tests.

25. A method to electronically monitor drivers in an effort to promote safer driving, comprising the steps of:

accepting electronic driver event data comprising at least one of accident data, incident data, and remediation data;

processing said driver event data in accordance with a pre-defined list of rules to assign a risk level to each driver for storage in a driver profile for each driver, assign critical events to each driver for storage in a driver profile for each driver, and to determine if remediation measures are required for each driver based on the assigned risk level;

electronically providing, tracking, administering, and managing remediation measures to those drivers having a predetermined risk level and/or having been assigned a critical event, wherein different remediation measures are offered for different risk levels and/or different critical events, said different remediation measures comprising varying degrees of driving safety information and driving safety information tests; and

reporting data representative of at least one of driver profiles, remediation progress, driver events, and risk levels to at least one of a driver having a driver profile and an administrator that monitors the driving of a plurality of drivers having driving profiles.

26. A computer readable storage medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon for instructing a computing device to perform the steps recited in claim 25.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein said remediation measures comprise driver safety education materials and tests.

28. A system to monitor drivers in an effort to promote safer driving, comprising:

a computing application comprising a user interface having an administrator interface and

a driver interface, said administrator interface having display regions and controls to control administrator-type content, and said driver interface having display regions and controls to control driver-type content,

wherein said administrator interface is operable by an administrator to create driver profiles, to view reports generated by said computing application representative of driver profiles for respective drivers and to establish driving safety paradigms for execution by said computing application, said driving safety paradigms being realized through the application of business rules on driver events to assign risk levels and/or identify and assign critical events for storage in said driver profiles and said business rules further providing instructions and guidelines for offering remediation measures to said drivers based on the risk levels assigned to said drivers, and

wherein said driver interface is operable by participating drivers to view said driver profile and to engage in said remediation measures; and

wherein a communications network cooperates with said computing application to communicate data between said drivers and said computing application.

29. The system as recited in claim 28, wherein said remediation measures comprise driving education materials and tests.

30. The system as recited in claim 28, wherein said communications network comprises any of a fixed-wire LAN, a wireless LAN, a fixed-wire WAN, a wireless WAN, a fixed-wire intranet, a wireless intranet, a fixed-wire extranet, a wireless extranet, cellular telephony, wireless paging, the Internet, and the wireless Internet.

31. A method to promote safer driving, comprising the steps of:

providing an automated driving safety information processing system to administrators of driver fleets, said automated driving safety information processing system capable of accepting driver event data and processing said driver event data to assign risk levels and/or critical events for monitored drivers for storage in driver profiles, said automated driving safety information processing system automatically and electronically distributing, tracking and managing remediation measures to drivers having a pre-defined risk level and/or critical events and reporting at least said driver profiles to said administrators; and

executing said automated driving safety information processing system in response to queries from at least one of monitored drivers and from said administrators.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein said remediation measures comprise driver safety education materials and tests.