Metrics-based transport vehicle fleet safety

• US 8,948,996 B2
• Filed: 12/20/2012
• Issued: 02/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fleetmetrica Inc.
• Original Assignee: Fleetmetrica Inc.
• Inventors: Warkentin, W. Ward
• Primary Examiner(s): ARTHUR JEANGLAUDE, GERTRUDE
• Application Number:
  US13/722,330
• Publication Number:
  US 20140180556A1
• Time in Patent Office: 775 Days
• Field of Search: 701/29.1, 701/29.3, 701/30.9, 701/31.1, 701/36, 701/99, 340/425.5, 340/438, 340/439
• US Class Current: 701/99
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 28/06 responsive to incapacity of driver
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0283 Predictive maintenance, e.g. involving the monitoring of a system and, based on the monitoring results, taking decisions on the maintenance schedule of the monitored system; Estimating remaining useful life [RUL] preventive maintenance, i.e. planning maintenance according to the available resources without monitoring the system G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083

Abstract

Vehicle operations data is received from a plurality of data capturing devices installed at a plurality of transport vehicles. The vehicle operations data is representative of sensor output captured by the data capturing devices. Data sets are processed to obtain different vehicle safety metrics defined by the different types of sensors. An indication of non-conformance can be output when a compared vehicle safety metric does not conform to a threshold. Vehicle safety metrics can be combined into a combined representation of a categorical aspect of vehicle safety, which can be dynamically updated whenever a metric is added or removed. Combined representations can be filtered or grouped according to a reporting criterion to generate reports for drivers, units, company divisions, and the like. Vehicle operations data can be converted from multiple different formats used by different data sources to a common format used for processing metrics and combined representations.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring transport vehicle fleet safety, the method comprising:

receiving vehicle operations data from a plurality of data capturing devices installed at a plurality of transport vehicles, the vehicle operations data representative of sensor output captured by the data capturing devices;

selecting a plurality of data sets from the vehicle operations data, the plurality of data sets representative of output of different types of sensors;

processing the plurality of data sets to obtain different vehicle safety metrics defined by the different types of sensors;

comparing at least one of the vehicle safety metrics to a threshold configured for the vehicle safety metric, the threshold being calculated based on past values of the data set on which the vehicle safety metric is based, the threshold being offset from an average value by a deviation, the average value being calculated from a first set of past values of the data set, the deviation being calculated from a second set of past values of the data set, and the second set of past values covering a longer time range than the first set of past values; and

when the compared vehicle safety metric does not conform to the threshold, outputting an indication of non-conformance to a manager device associated with a manager of fleet drivers of the transport vehicle fleet;

the indication of non-conformance configured for safety analysis of past operation of at least one transport vehicle of the fleet for oversight by management and feedback to at least one fleet driver of the at least one transport vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the threshold is based on a normal distribution calculated for data within the data set on which the vehicle safety metric is based.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the second set of past values covers a time range at least about seven times as long as the time range covered by the first set of past values.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the vehicle operations data is received in multiple different formats from multiple disparate data sources, wherein the processing comprises converting the vehicle operations data to a common format.

5. A method of monitoring transport vehicle fleet safety, the method comprising:

receiving vehicle operations data from a plurality of data capturing devices installed at a plurality of transport vehicles, the vehicle operations data representative of sensor output captured by the data capturing devices;

selecting a plurality of data sets from the vehicle operations data, the plurality of data sets representative of output of different types of sensors;

processing the plurality of data sets to obtain different vehicle safety metrics defined by the different types of sensors;

comparing at least one of the vehicle safety metrics to a threshold configured for the vehicle safety metric, the threshold being calculated based on past values of a respective data set of the plurality of data sets on which the vehicle safety metric is based, the threshold being offset from an average value by a deviation, the average value being calculated from a first set of past values of the respective data set, the deviation being calculated from a second set of past values of the respective data set, and the second set of past values covering a longer time range than the first set of past values;

when the compared vehicle safety metric does not conform to the threshold, outputting an indication of non-conformance to a manager device associated with a manager of fleet drivers of the transport vehicle fleet, the indication of non-conformance configured for safety analysis of past operation of at least one transport vehicle of the fleet for oversight by management and feedback to at least one fleet driver of the at least one transport vehicle; and

combining at least two of the vehicle safety metrics to obtain a combined representation of a categorical aspect of vehicle safety, the combined representation of the categorical aspect of vehicle safety defined by the types of sensors associated with the combined vehicle safety metrics.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein selection of the plurality of data sets is configurable to define different combined representations of a same categorical aspect of vehicle safety.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein combining the at least two vehicle safety metrics comprises determining the combined representation to be a proportion of a number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to not conform to the respective threshold to a total number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to have sufficient data.

8. A method of displaying categorical aspects of transport vehicle fleet safety, the method comprising:

receiving vehicle operations data from a plurality of data capturing devices installed at a plurality of transport vehicles, the vehicle operations data representative of sensor output captured by the data capturing devices;

displaying a user interface configured to allow selection of a plurality of data sets of the vehicle operations data, the plurality of data sets representative of output of different types of sensors;

processing the selected data sets to obtain different vehicle safety metrics defined by the different types of sensors;

comparing at least one of the vehicle safety metrics to a threshold configured for the vehicle safety metric, the threshold being calculated based on past values of a respective data set of the selected data sets on which the vehicle safety metric is based, the threshold being offset from an average value by a deviation, the average value being calculated from a first set of past values of the respective data set, the deviation being calculated from a second set of past values of the respective data set, and the second set of past values covering a longer time range than the first set of past values;

combining the vehicle safety metrics of the selected data sets into a combined representation of a categorical aspect of vehicle safety;

displaying the combined representation of the categorical aspect of vehicle safety in the user interface; and

when the compared vehicle safety metric does not conform to the threshold, outputting an indication of non-conformance to a manager device associated with a manager of fleet drivers of the transport vehicle fleet, the indication of non-conformance configured for safety analysis of past operation of at least one transport vehicle of the fleet for oversight by management and feedback to at least one fleet driver of the at least one transport vehicle;

wherein combining the vehicle safety metrics of the selected data sets into the combined representation and displaying the combined representation are dynamically performed whenever at least one of the data sets is selected.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein combining the vehicle safety metrics of the selected data sets into the combined representation of the categorical aspect of vehicle safety comprises:

determining the combined representation to be a proportion of a number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to not conform to the respective threshold to a total number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to have sufficient data.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the vehicle operations data is received in multiple different formats from multiple disparate data sources, wherein the processing comprises converting the vehicle operations data to a common format.

11. The method of claim 8 further comprising removing a vehicle safety metric of a previously selected data set from the combined representation in response to deselection of the previously selected data set.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein removing the vehicle safety metric of the previously selected data set from the combined representation and displaying the combined representation are dynamically performed whenever at least one of the data sets is deselected.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the user interface is further configured to filter or group the plurality of data sets based on a grouping criterion associated with the plurality of transport vehicles.

14. A method of generating a safety report for transport vehicles, the method comprising:

receiving vehicle operations data from a plurality of data capturing devices installed at a plurality of transport vehicles of a transport vehicle fleet, the vehicle operations data representative of sensor output captured by the data capturing devices;

selecting a plurality of data sets from the vehicle operations data, the plurality of data sets representative of output of different types of sensors;

processing the selected data sets to obtain different vehicle safety metrics defined by the different types of sensors;

comparing at least one of the vehicle safety metrics to a threshold configured for the vehicle safety metric, the threshold being calculated based on past values of a respective data set of the selected data sets on which the vehicle safety metric is based, the threshold being offset from an average value by a deviation, the average value being calculated from a first set of past values of the respective data set, the deviation being calculated from a second set of past values of the respective data set, and the second set of past values covering a longer time range than the first set of past values;

combining the vehicle safety metrics into a plurality of combined representations of different categorical aspects of vehicle safety;

filtering the combined representations according to a reporting criterion;

generating a report containing the filtered combined representations; and

outputting the report to a manager device associated with a manager of fleet drivers of the transport vehicle fleet, the report including an indication of non-conformance when the compared vehicle safety metric does not conform to the threshold, the indication of non-conformance configured for safety analysis of past operation of at least one transport vehicle of the fleet for oversight by management and feedback to at least one fleet driver of the at least one transport vehicle.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein combining the vehicle safety metrics of the data sets into the plurality of combined representations comprises:

determining at least one of the combined representations to be a proportion of a number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to not conform to the respective threshold to a total number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to have sufficient data.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the vehicle operations data is received in multiple different formats from multiple disparate data sources, wherein the processing comprises converting the vehicle operations data to a common format.

17. The method of claim 14 further comprising filtering the vehicle operations data to conform to a selected time period.

18. The method of claim 14 further comprising providing a user interface configured to receive manual input of a comment associated with the report, and including the comment and a date stamp of the comment in the report.

19. The method of claim 14 further comprising providing a user interface configured to allow selection of the reporting criterion.

20. A system for processing data related to transport vehicle fleet safety, the system comprising:

one or more servers connected to a network and configured to receive vehicle operations data from a plurality of disparate data sources that receive data from a plurality of sensor-based data capturing devices installed at a plurality of transport vehicles;

the one or more servers further configured to convert the vehicle operations data from multiple different formats used by the data sources to a common format;

the one or more servers further configured to provide a user interface configured to allow selection of data sets from the converted vehicle operations data according to different criteria;

the one or more servers further configured to process the selected data sets to obtain and output for display different vehicle safety metrics defined by different sensors connected to the data capturing devices;

the one or more servers further configured to compare at least one of the vehicle safety metrics to a threshold configured for the vehicle safety metric, the threshold being calculated based on past values of a respective data set of the selected data sets on which the vehicle safety metric is based, the threshold being offset from an average value by a deviation, the average value being calculated from a first set of past values of the respective data set, the deviation being calculated from a second set of past values of the respective data set, and the second set of past values covering a longer time range than the first set of past values;

the one or more servers further configured to output an indication of non-conformance to a manager device associated with a manager of fleet drivers of the transport vehicle fleet when the compared vehicle safety metric does not conform to the threshold, the indication of non-conformance configured for safety analysis of past operation of at least one transport vehicle of the fleet for oversight by management and feedback to at least one fleet driver of the at least one transport vehicle.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the one or more servers are further configured to combine different sets of the vehicle safety metrics to obtain different combined representations of different categorical aspects of vehicle safety.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the one or more servers are further configured to determine at least one of the combined representations to be a proportion of a number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to not conform to the respective threshold to a total number of the vehicle safety metrics determined to have sufficient data.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the different vehicle safety metrics selectable from the user interface comprise two or more of:

short-term driving time violations, long-term driving time violations, vehicle brake adjustment status, vehicle crash conditions, vehicle computer fault codes, vehicle location, hard braking, excessive engine speed, vehicle operation time, engine idle time, vehicle lane departures, vehicle mileage, vehicle fuel economy, vehicle over-speed, vehicle rollover conditions, and vehicle tire pressure.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the different combined representations of different categorical aspects of vehicle safety are selectable from the user interface and comprise representations indicating two or more of:

management oversight of vehicle operations, vehicle maintenance, driver behaviour, vehicle fuel consumption, unsafe driving, regulatory compliance, and vehicle dispatch information.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the one or more servers are further configured to output the different combined representations of different categorical aspects of vehicle safety for display at the user interface on the manager device connected to the one or more servers via the network.

26. The system of claim 20, wherein the one or more servers are further configured to receive vehicle violation data from one or more government data sources and to output for display representations of the vehicle violation data in association with the different vehicle safety metrics.

27. The system of claim 20, wherein the one or more servers are further configured to adjust missing or erroneous values of the vehicle operations data.

28. A system for processing data related to transport vehicle fleet safety, the system comprising:

one or more servers connected to a network and configured to receive vehicle operations data from a plurality of disparate data sources that receive data from a plurality of sensor-based data capturing devices installed at a plurality of transport vehicles;

the one or more servers further configured to adjust missing or erroneous values of the vehicle operations data;

the one or more servers further configured to provide a user interface configured to allow selection of data sets from the converted vehicle operations data according to different criteria;

the one or more servers further configured to process the selected data sets to obtain and output for display different vehicle safety metrics defined by different sensors connected to the data capturing devices;

the one or more servers further configured to compare at least one of the vehicle safety metrics to a threshold configured for the vehicle safety metric, the threshold being calculated based on past values of a respective data set of the selected data sets on which the vehicle safety metric is based, the threshold being offset from an average value by a deviation, the average value being calculated from a first set of past values of the respective data set, the deviation being calculated from a second set of past values of the respective data set, and the second set of past values covering a longer time range than the first set of past values;

the one or more servers further configured to output an indication of non-conformance to a manager device associated with a manager of fleet drivers of the transport vehicle fleet when the compared vehicle safety metric does not conform to the threshold, the indication of non-conformance configured for safety analysis of past operation of at least one transport vehicle of the fleet for oversight by management and feedback to at least one fleet driver of the at least one transport vehicle.