System and method for providing a price quotation for a transportation service providing equipment selection capability
First Claim
1. A method for a rail transportation company to obtain particulars from a customer about a desired shipment of goods and to perform the desired shipment of goods based on the information received from the customer, the method including:
- (a) implementing a graphical user interface on a customer computer system, the graphical user interface configured to receive an input from the customer for directing the rail transportation company to use, for the desired shipment of goods, a freight railcar of a type selected by the customer and owned by an entity selected by the customer, the graphical user interface being configured to provide the customer with;
(i) at least two freight railcar type options that the customer can choose from, the at least two freight railcar type options including a first option which identifies a first type of freight railcar, and a second option which identifies a second type of freight railcar, which is different from the first type of freight railcar;
(ii) at least two freight railcar ownership options that the customer can choose from, one of the freight railcar ownership options identifying the customer as owner of the freight railcar to be used for the desired shipment, another of the freighter railcar ownership options identifying an entity other than the customer as owner of the freight railcar to be used for the desired shipment;
(b) performing the desired shipment by using a freight railcar of the type selected by the customer among the freight railcar type options and owned by the entity selected by the customer among the freight railcar ownership options.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system for computing the price for shipping goods. The method includes causing a computer to deliver first information to a user prompting the user to enter at the computer information about a rail transportation service for shipment of goods by one or more railcars. Information about a basic pool of railcars is received and filtered based on one or more filtering criteria to produce a filtered pool of railcars. The computer is then caused to deliver second information to the user prompting the user to select at the computer one or more railcars among the filtered pool of railcars for the shipment of goods. A price for the shipment of the goods is then computed at least in part on the basis of the rail transportation service and the one or more characteristics of the railcars in the filtered pool of railcars selected by the user.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method for a rail transportation company to obtain particulars from a customer about a desired shipment of goods and to perform the desired shipment of goods based on the information received from the customer, the method including:
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(a) implementing a graphical user interface on a customer computer system, the graphical user interface configured to receive an input from the customer for directing the rail transportation company to use, for the desired shipment of goods, a freight railcar of a type selected by the customer and owned by an entity selected by the customer, the graphical user interface being configured to provide the customer with; (i) at least two freight railcar type options that the customer can choose from, the at least two freight railcar type options including a first option which identifies a first type of freight railcar, and a second option which identifies a second type of freight railcar, which is different from the first type of freight railcar; (ii) at least two freight railcar ownership options that the customer can choose from, one of the freight railcar ownership options identifying the customer as owner of the freight railcar to be used for the desired shipment, another of the freighter railcar ownership options identifying an entity other than the customer as owner of the freight railcar to be used for the desired shipment; (b) performing the desired shipment by using a freight railcar of the type selected by the customer among the freight railcar type options and owned by the entity selected by the customer among the freight railcar ownership options. - 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)
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Specification