Warning for frequently traveled trips based on traffic

• US 9,631,930 B2
• Filed: 11/15/2013
• Issued: 04/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: McGavran, Christine B., Moore, Bradford A., Bolsinga, Gregory D., Blumenberg, Christopher, Pylappan, Seejo K., van Os, Marcel
• Primary Examiner(s): Anwari, Maceeh
• Application Number:
  US14/081,899
• Publication Number:
  US 20140278070A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,257 Days
• Field of Search: 701465
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3492 employing speed data or traffic data, e.g. real-time or historical traffic control systems for road vehicles involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3617 using user history, behaviour, conditions or preferences, e.g. predicted or inferred from previous use or current movement
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/362 received from an external device or application, e.g. PDA, mobile phone or calendar application
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3691 Retrieval, searching and output of information related to real-time traffic, weather, or environmental conditions arrangements for giving variable traffic instructions G08G1/09
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/04 Inference or reasoning models

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide a novel prediction engine that (1) can formulate predictions about current or future destinations and/or routes to such destinations for a user, and (2) can relay information to the user about these predictions. In some embodiments, this engine includes a machine-learning engine that facilitates the formulation of predicted future destinations and/or future routes to destinations based on stored, user-specific data. The user-specific data is different in different embodiments. In some embodiments, the stored, user-specific data includes data about any combination of the following: (1) previous destinations traveled to by the user, (2) previous routes taken by the user, (3) locations of calendared events in the user'"'"'s calendar, (4) locations of events for which the user has electronic tickets, and (5) addresses parsed from recent e-mails and/or messages sent to the user. In some embodiments, the prediction engine only relies on user-specific data stored on the device on which this engine executes. Alternatively, in other embodiments, it relies only on user-specific data stored outside of the device by external devices/servers. In still other embodiments, the prediction engine relies on user-specific data stored both by the device and by other devices/servers.

Claims

1. A mobile device comprising:

a display screen;

a non-transitory machine readable medium storing;

a prediction engine configured to formulate predicted destinations and desired arrival times for the predicted destinations for the device; and

a notification manager configured to present notifications regarding the predicted destinations for display on the display screen, wherein the notification manager is further configured to provide a first notification comprising temporal data for expressing a time to depart in order to reach a particular predicted destination by a desired arrival time when a confidence level for the desired arrival time exceeds a threshold value and for providing a second, different notification for the particular predicted destination when the confidence level for the desired arrival time does not exceed the threshold value.

2. The mobile device of claim 1 further comprising at least one processing unit for executing the prediction engine.

3. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the non-transitory machine readable medium further stores:

a route identifier configured to identify routes to the predicted destinations and non-temporal data regarding the identified routes;

wherein the non-temporal data comprises traffic data that describes traffic along the identified routes to the predicted destinations.

4. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein the route identifier is further configured to provide the non-temporal data to the notification manager so that the notification manager includes the non-temporal data in at least one of the first and second notifications.

5. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein the second notification comprises temporal data expressing an estimated duration for a journey to the particular predicted destination.

6. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein the traffic data comprises data regarding traffic incidents along an identified route to a predicted destination.

7. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein the notifications further comprise a selectable option to view a set of one or more routes to the predicted destination as a set of alternative routes to the identified route.

8. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein the route identifier comprises:

a route generator configured to generate the routes to the predicted destinations; and

a route processor configured to identify the traffic data regarding the generated routes to the predicted destinations.

9. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein the route identifier is further configured to:

identify a current location of the device at a particular time,

receive, from the prediction engine, a predicted destination and a desired arrival time at the predicted destination, for the current location at the particular time,

receive, from an external set of servers, a time to travel to the predicted destination, and

direct the notification manager to provide a notification regarding travel to the predicted destination in order to ensure arrival by the desired arrival time.

10. The mobile device of claim 1 further comprising a storage configured to store previous locations of the device and arrival times at the previous locations, wherein the particular predicted destination is derived from the stored previous locations, wherein the notification manager derives the confidence level for the desired arrival time from a range of the stored arrival times for the particular predicted destination.

11. The mobile device of claim 10, wherein the prediction engine is further configured to identify predicted destinations based on addresses harvested from a set of applications of the mobile device, wherein the particular predicted destination is an address that is harvested from a particular application, wherein the notification manager determines the confidence level for the desired arrival time based on an identity of the particular application.

12. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the notification manager provides the notifications in a notification center that the notification manager provides to present various notifications.

13. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the notification manager provides the notifications as notification banners that the notification manager automatically presents on the display screen.

14. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the temporal data of the first notification expresses the time to depart as a period of time during which a journey to the particular predicted destination should commence.

15. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the temporal data of the first notification expresses the time to depart as a specific time at which a journey to the particular predicted destination should commence.

16. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the non-transitory machine readable medium further stores a traffic monitor configured to obtain traffic congestion data to the predicted destinations from a source external to the mobile device.

17. A mobile device comprising:

a set of processing units; and

a non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program, which when executed by the set of processing units provides notifications for predicted destinations of the mobile device, the program comprising sets of instructions for;

identifying a destination for a current location of the device and a corresponding desired arrival time for the destination;

determining whether a confidence level for the desired arrival time exceeds a threshold value; and

providing a first notification comprising temporal data expressing an estimated time to depart in order to reach the identified destination by the desired arrival time when the confidence level for the desired arrival time exceeds the threshold value and providing a second different notification for the identified destination when the confidence level for the desired arrival time does not exceed the threshold value.

18. The mobile device of claim 17, wherein the first notification is provided to facilitate arrival by the desired arrival time.

19. The mobile device of claim 17, wherein the set of instructions for identifying the destination and the corresponding desired arrival time for the identified destination is based on the current location of the device and a current time of day.

20. The mobile device of claim 17, wherein the notifications further comprise non-temporal data for describing traffic incidents along a route from the current location to the identified destination, wherein the non-temporal data describes at least one of accidents along the route, construction along the route, road closure along the route, and traffic congestion along the route.

21. The mobile device of claim 20, wherein the second notification comprises temporal data describing an estimated duration for travel to the identified destination.

22. The mobile device of claim 20, wherein the temporal data of the first notification comprises a recommendation regarding a latest departure time for traveling to the identified destination in order to reach the destination by the desired arrival time.

23. The mobile device of claim 17, wherein the notifications further comprise non-temporal data describing traffic congestion along a route from the current location to the identified destination;

wherein the non-temporal data comprises a comparative expression of the traffic congestion along the route or portion of the route at a current day and time, the comparative expression comparing a current traffic congestion level at the current day and time, to historical traffic congestion levels on comparative times to the current time on prior days.

24. The mobile device of claim 23, wherein the current day is on a particular day in a week, and the comparative times for the historical traffic congestion levels includes times that are identical to the current time or fall within a same time period as the current time on a same day of the week as the particular day.

25. The mobile device of claim 23, wherein the current day is on a day that is not a holiday or a day on the weekend, and the comparative times for the historical traffic congestion levels include times that are identical to the current time or fall within a same time period as the current time on days that are neither holidays nor days on the weekends.

26. The mobile device of claim 23, wherein the current day is on a day that is a holiday or a day on the weekend, and the comparative times for the historical traffic congestion levels includes times that are identical to the current time or fall within a same time period as the current time on days that are either holidays or days on the weekends.

27. The mobile device of claim 17, wherein the set of instructions for identifying a destination comprises a set of instructions for deriving the destination and the desired arrival time from previous locations of the device, wherein the confidence level for the desired arrival time is based on a history of arrival times at the derived destination.

28. The mobile device of claim 27, wherein the set of instructions for identifying a destination further comprises sets of instructions for:

harvesting addresses from an application executing on the device; and

identifying a set of the harvested addresses as destinations.

29. The mobile device of claim 28, wherein the application is at least one of a calendar application and an electronic messaging program;

and

wherein the harvested addresses include at least one of locations of calendared appointments and addresses harvested from electronic messages received by the electronic messaging program, wherein the confidence level for the desired arrival time for a destination identified from the harvested addresses is based on a type of the application from which the addresses were harvested.

30. A method of providing notifications regarding predicted future destinations of a mobile device, the method comprising:

for a current location of the device at a particular time, identifying a destination and a desired arrival time for the identified destination;

determining whether a confidence level for the desired arrival time exceeds a threshold value;

when the confidence level exceeds the threshold value, providing a first notification comprising temporal data expressing an estimated time to depart in order to reach the identified destination by the desired arrival time; and

when the confidence level does not exceed the threshold value, providing a second notice for the identified destination comprising temporal data expressing an estimated travel duration to reach the identified destination.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the first notification is provided to facilitate arrival by the desired arrival time.