Vehicle operator performance history recording, scoring and reporting systems

• US 8,989,959 B2
• Filed: 11/07/2006
• Issued: 03/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SmartDrive Systems, Inc. (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: SmartDrive Systems, Inc. (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Plante, James, Kasavaraju, Ramesh, Mauro, Gregory, Nickerson, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Amin, Bhavesh V
• Application Number:
  US11/593,659
• Publication Number:
  US 20080122603A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,059 Days
• Field of Search: 434/65
• US Class Current: 701/33.4
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 40/08 related to drivers or passengers
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers

Abstract

Vehicle operator performance history recording and reporting systems include devices and methods of automatically collecting and processing vehicle crash or event data over time to form a driver history report. A driver history report may include many factors to express performance or quality of driver service, and these may be reduced to a single value normalized expression in view of a collection of many drivers. Vehicle event recorders are arranged to capture data relating to a particular event. These vehicle event recorders are further coupled to systems which form an association between collected data and the vehicle operator in command of the vehicle at the event moment. Systems provide means for long-term storage of data particularly data in a structure which preserves the association between a driver and event records attributed to him/her. Special recall operations executed against stored data yields operator performance reporting—including a single value performance score indicative of a vehicle operator'"'"'s performance and safety history. An analyzer system operates to recall data, particularly data from a plurality of events all associated with a single operator but recorded over an extended period of time. Data is arranged such that other mathematical analysis may be applied independently to various data elements or data “fields” to produce performance metrics and ratios which reflect performance. Together, these factors may each be weighted and summed in accordance with specially devised a formulae including those having a single value solution.

Claims

1. A system configured to determine a vehicle operator performance measure, the system comprising:

an operator identity system located remotely from the vehicle configured to receive entry and/or selection of operator identity information by operators of the vehicle that identifies periods of time individual operators operate the vehicle, the operator identity information including first operator identity information that identifies a first period of time a first operator operates the vehicle;

an associator configured to;

receive the first operator identity information;

receive event records that include information related to vehicle operation and/or performance during corresponding vehicle events that occur during operation of the vehicle, the event records including a first event record that corresponds to a first vehicle event and a second event record that corresponds to a second vehicle event;

associate the event records and the operator identity information such that, by virtue of the first vehicle event and the second vehicle event occurring during the first period of time the first operator operates the vehicle, the first event record is associated with the first operator identity information for the first operator via a first association, and the second event record is associated with the first operator identity information for the first operator via a second association;

form datasets comprising the operator identity information and the associated event records such that a first dataset includes the first operator identity information and the first associated event record, and a second dataset includes the first operator identity information and the second associated event record; and

transmit the datasets to a data store that is located remotely from the vehicle; and

an analyzer configured to retrieve the datasets from the data store and analyze the datasets, including the first dataset and the second dataset, to determine a vehicle operator performance measure for the first operator.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a set of electronic transducers, individual ones of the transducers being coupled to vehicle environments or vehicle systems and configured to generate output signals conveying information relating to vehicle operation and/or performance.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the associator is configured such that the event records include the information conveyed by the output signals.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the transducers include one or more of an imager;

a video recorder;

an accelerometer;

a speedometer;

a position sensor;

an orientation sensor;

a time sensor;

or a vehicle systems status indicator, the vehicle systems status indicator including one or more of an engine speed indicator, a temperature indicator;

a braking indicator;

a gear ratio indicator;

or a steering position indicator.

5. The system of claim 3, further comprising a vehicle event recorder, the vehicle event recorder being comprised of an imager, memory, and an event trigger, the vehicle event recorder arranged to produce event records in response to a toggle of said event trigger.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the associator is configured such that toggling the event trigger causes the information conveyed by the output signals to be captured as a portion of an event record and to be associated with the first operator identity information.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the associator is configured to form datasets comprising the first operator identity information and associated event records for one or more operation sessions by the first operator.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the operator identity system includes a memory with stored values associated with at least the first operator of the vehicle.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the operator identity system is integrated with a vehicle event recorder.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the operator identity system includes an integrated download server.

30. The system of claim 1, wherein the operator identity system is configured to receive entry and/or selection of the first operator identity information via one or more of tactile input through a user interface or a smart card reader.

31. The system of claim 1, wherein the analyzer is configured to apply the mathematical analysis to produce a first vehicle operator performance measure comprising a single score that reflects the performance of the first operator.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein the analyzer is configured such that the single score is a score between 0 and 1 and indicates a level of performance of the first operator relative to other operators.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the analyzer is configured to assign a best performing operator a score of 1 and to assign a score between 0 and 1 to other individual operators to reflect the performance of an individual operator relative to the best performing operator.

11. A method for determining a vehicle operator performance measure with a determination system, the determination system comprising an associator, an operator identity system, and an analyzer, the method comprising:

receiving, with one or more processors of the associator, an event record, the event record including information related to vehicle operation and/or performance during a corresponding vehicle event that occurs during operation of the vehicle;

receiving, with one or more processors of the operator identity system, operator identity information, wherein receiving operator identity information includes receiving entry and/or selection of operator identity information by operators of the vehicle via an interface located remotely from the vehicle that identifies periods of time individual operators operate the vehicle, the operator identity information including first operator identity information that identifies a first period of time that a first operator operates the vehicle;

associating, with the one or more processors of the associator, the received event record and the received operator identity information such that, by virtue of the vehicle event occurring during the first period of time, the event record is associated with the first operator identity information for the first operator;

forming, with the one or more processors of the associator, a dataset record comprising the event record and the associated first operator identity information;

storing, with the one or more processors of the associator, said dataset record in a database with other dataset records;

recalling, with one or more processors of the analyzer, a plurality of dataset records from said database;

applying, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, a mathematical analysis upon elements of the dataset records; and

providing, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, an output report based upon results of the applied mathematical analysis.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

receiving an event record’

step is further characterized as receiving, with the one or more processors of the associator, from a vehicle event recorder information captured in response to a triggered event.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said information captured in response to a triggered event includes a video record of environments about a subject vehicle.

14. The method of claim of claim 11, wherein said ‘

receiving identity information’

step is further characterized as receiving, with the one or more processors of the associator, a unique identifier assigned to one or more of an individual operator, an individual vehicle, or a vehicle fleet.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

forming an association’

step is further characterized as connecting, joining, or associating received operator and/or vehicle information with a particular event record.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein said database record includes a plurality of field elements, each field element having a prescribed data type and value assigned thereto, the values reflecting information received as an event record and/or identity information.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

recalling a plurality of dataset records’

step is further characterized as recalling, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, only those records associated with the first operator.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

recalling a plurality of dataset records’

step is further characterized as recalling, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, only those records associated with a particular vehicle.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

recalling a plurality of dataset records’

step is further characterized as recalling, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, only those records associated with a particular fleet of vehicles.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein said ‘

applying mathematical analysis’

step is further characterized as executing, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, an algorithm on a plurality of dataset records, each dataset record comprising therein information from an event record captured at a time different than the capture time of all other dataset records, the algorithm being applied to a common field of each recalled dataset record.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said ‘

applying mathematical analysis’

step is further characterized as executing, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, an algorithm to realize a ratio between the resultant of two algorithms applied to two different field elements.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein said ratio comprises a time based unit in the denominator.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein said ratio comprises a distance based unit in the denominator.

24. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

providing an output report’

step is further characterized as a report having a plurality of resultants produced by application of the mathematical analysis.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein said output report comprises a single value operator performance coefficient produced by application of a prescribed algorithm having components driven by outputs of other algorithms.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein said single value is based upon weighted coefficients being applied to algorithm resultants.

27. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

providing an output report’

step is further characterized as producing, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, a text and graphic indicia on printed media.

28. The method of claim 11, wherein said ‘

providing an output report’

step is further characterized as producing, with the one or more processors of the analyzer, a text and graphic display at on an opto-electric display device.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the report includes hyperlinks having URLs associated with video captured in response to an event trigger.