System and method for integrating smartphone technology into a safety management platform to improve driver safety

• US 9,688,286 B2
• Filed: 02/11/2010
• Issued: 06/27/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Omnitracs LLC (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Omnitracs LLC (Solera Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Wilkes, III, Samuel M., Ferrara, Jr., Michael N., Mahany, Richard J., Begley, Peter J.
• Primary Examiner(s): SHARMA, SUJATHA R
• Application Number:
  US12/704,038
• Publication Number:
  US 20110077028A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,693 Days
• Field of Search: 4554561, 4554261, 455410, 455344, 455345, 455352, 4555561, 4554041, 455450, 455 6711, 455423, 4554141, 455 412, 340441, 340438, 340439, 340435, 340436, 340901, 340961, 340936, 340905, 701 93, 701117, 701213, 701201, 701211, 701301, 701 32, 701216, 701217
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/563 Vehicle displaying mobile device information
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 2360/566 Mobile devices displaying vehicle information
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/80 Arrangements for controlling instruments
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2050/0075 Automatic parameter input, automatic initialising or calibrating means
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2540/043 Identity of occupants
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2554/00 Input parameters relating to objects
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2555/20 Ambient conditions, e.g. wind or rain
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2555/60 Traffic rules, e.g. speed limits or right of way
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/45 External transmission of data to or from the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 2556/50 of positioning data, e.g. GPS [Global Positioning System] data
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 30/08 Active safety systems predicting or avoiding probable or impending collision or attempting to minimise its consequences
• CPC Class Codes: B60W 50/14 Means for informing the driver, warning the driver or prompting a driver intervention
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/052 with provision for determining speed or overspeed speed measuring in general G01P
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6075 adapted for handsfree use in a vehicle H04M1/6058 takes precedence; arrangements for holding telephones in a vehicle B60R11/0241

Abstract

Identifying risky driving situations in the context of a driver'"'"'s real-time operating environment and providing effective interventions and countermeasures that mitigate the risky situation to reduce the likelihood of the driver having a vehicular accident. A driver monitoring and mentoring system includes mobile safety centers individually installed on driver-assigned smartphones or other mobile devices. The mobile safety centers collect real-time driving data and compute a risk of a driver in a specific situation being involved in an accident and provide mentoring to drivers in a driver risk situation above a risk threshold to reduce the likelihood of an accident. The mobile safety centers communicate with a master safety analytics center that collects data, collects and stores information relating to detected risk situations, creates risk algorithms, creates driving mentoring communications, and communicates the algorithms and communications to the mobile safety centers.

Claims

1. A system for managing driver safety, comprising:

a safety analytics computer system for generating at least one risk identification algorithm for determining a risk score indicating a likelihood that a driver will be involved in a vehicular accident based on a situation of a vehicle operated by the driver; and

a mobile device in communication with the safety analytics computer system for;

receiving the risk identification algorithm from the safety analytics computer system;

obtaining situational information associated with the situation of the vehicle;

executing the risk identification algorithm using at least the situational information to determine the risk score that the driver will be involved in a vehicular accident; and

presenting a driver intervention to the driver if the risk score is above a risk threshold associated with a driver intervention rule,

wherein the safety analytics computer system is configured to automatically adjust the risk threshold for each driver intervention rule based on information associated with the driver.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device is a smartphone.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the safety analytics computer system generates a driver intervention rule for each of a plurality of vehicle risk situations, each driver intervention rule comprising at least one risk threshold and a driver intervention for presentation to the driver if the risk score exceeds the risk threshold.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the situational information comprises at least one of information associated with the vehicle, or information associated with weather in a location of the vehicle, or information associated with the traffic density on a roadway that the vehicle is traveling.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the driver intervention comprises a graphical display presented on a display of the mobile device.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the driver intervention comprises an audio message delivered by an audio system of the mobile device.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device comprises a vehicle interface for communicating with one or more systems of the vehicle.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein at least a portion of the situational information is obtained from the one or more systems of the vehicle.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the driver intervention comprises a mentoring message presented to the driver by one of an audio system of the vehicle and a display system of the vehicle.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device comprises a GPS receiver and the situational information comprises at least one of a speed or a location of the vehicle obtained from the GPS receiver.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device comprises an accelerometer and a gyroscope and the situational information comprises information associated with acceleration of the vehicle, deceleration of the vehicle, and whether the vehicle is navigating a turn in a road obtained from the accelerometer and gyroscope.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device comprises a camera and the situational information comprises at least one of a following distance of the vehicle relative to another vehicle or driver lane departure information.

49. The system of claim 1, wherein the risk score is further determined based on road characteristic information including elevation.

13. A method for communicating a driver intervention to a driver to alert the driver of a driving risk, comprising:

running a mobile safety center module on a smartphone;

retrieving by the mobile safety center module information associated with a current driving situation for the driver;

executing on the mobile safety center module a risk identification algorithm using at least the current driving situation information to determine a risk score that indicates a likelihood that the current driving situation corresponds to one of a plurality of driving risks, wherein the risk identification algorithm is received from and generated by a remote safety analytics computer system;

presenting by the mobile safety center module a driver intervention indicative of the one driving risk to the driver based on the risk score; and

automatically adjusting the risk threshold based on information associated with the driver.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the current driving situation information comprises at least one of information associated with a vehicle that the driver is driving, or information associated with a road that the driver is located, or information associated with weather proximal to the driver.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising the steps of:

comparing by the mobile safety center module each risk score to at least one risk threshold of an intervention rule corresponding to the driving risk for the risk score; and

determining by the mobile safety center module the driver intervention to present to the driver based on the comparison.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the driver intervention is presented to the driver by way of one of an audio system of a vehicle that the driver is driving and a display system of the vehicle that the driver is driving.

50. The method of claim 13, wherein the risk score is further determined based on road characteristic information including elevation.

17. A computer system for managing driver safety, comprising:

a risk detection subsystem for generating risk identification algorithms that identify whether a driver of a vehicle is in one of a plurality of driving risk situations, wherein the risk identification algorithms are transmitted to a mobile device for executing the risk identification algorithms using at least information associated with a driving situation to determine a risk score that indicates a likelihood that the driver will be involved in at least a portion of the driving risk situations;

an intervention rules generator for generating an intervention rule for each of the plurality of driving risk situations, each intervention rule comprising a risk threshold and a driving intervention associated with the risk threshold for presentation to a driver if the risk score for the driver exceeds the risk threshold, wherein the intervention rules generator is operable to automatically adjust the risk threshold based on information associated with the driver;

a driver intervention subsystem for generating the driving interventions for the intervention rules such that the driver interventions are based on risk threshold information associated with the driver; and

a communications manager for communicating with one or more information sources to obtain driving situational information and for communicating with a plurality of mobile devices associated with drivers to deliver the risk identification algorithms, intervention rules, and driving interventions to the mobile devices.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising a safety plan compiler subsystem for aggregating the risk identification algorithms, intervention rules, and driving interventions into a safety plan for a driver.

19. The system of claim 17, further comprising an effectiveness measurement subsystem for evaluating the risk identification algorithms, intervention rules, and driving interventions based on success of reducing driver unsafe behaviors and updating the risk identification algorithms, intervention rules, and driving interventions based on the evaluation.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the intervention rules generator is operable to adjust the risk thresholds based the likelihood that the driver will be involved in an accident.

21. The system of claim 17, wherein the mobile device comprises a smartphone.

22. The system of claim 17, further comprising a database for storing a report comprising information associated with an occurrence of one of the plurality of driving risk situations received by the communications manager from one of the plurality of mobile devices.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the communications manager receives information associated with the driving situation of the driver and wherein the risk detection subsystem determines whether the driver is one of the plurality of driving risk situations and responsive to a determination that the driver is in one of the plurality of driving risk situations, storing information associated with the determined driving risk situation in the database.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the risk detection subsystem uses information stored in the database to improve the accuracy of the risk detection algorithms.

25. The system of claim 17, wherein the communications manager receives updated driving situational information from the information sources and sends the updated driving situational information to one of the mobile devices based on a determination that a potential driving risk situation is present for a driver associated with the mobile device.

51. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the risk score is further determined based on road characteristic information including elevation.

26. A smartphone for communicating a driver intervention to a driver to alert the driver of a driving risk, comprising:

a processor, computer-readable memory, and a computer-readable storage media;

a mobile safety center module comprising;

first computer program instructions for obtaining information associated with a current driving situation for the driver;

second computer program instructions for executing one or more risk identification algorithms using at least the current driving situation information to determine a risk score that indicates a likelihood that the current driving situation corresponds to one of a plurality of driving risks, wherein the one or more risk identification algorithms are received from and generated by a remote safety analytics computer system; and

third computer program instructions for presenting a driver intervention indicative of the one driving risk to the driver if the risk score satisfies a risk threshold,

wherein the mobile safety center module comprises computer-readable instructions stored on the computer-readable storage media for execution by the processor by way of the computer-readable memory, and

wherein the risk threshold is automatically adjustable based on information associated with the driver.

27. The smartphone of claim 26, further comprising a display and an audio system and wherein the driver intervention comprises a mentoring message presented to the driver by way of one of the display and the audio system.

28. The smartphone of claim 26, wherein the mobile safety center module further comprises:

fourth computer program instructions to compare the risk score to the risk threshold of an intervention rule corresponding to the driving risk for the risk score; and

fifth computer program instructions to determine the driver intervention to present to the driver based upon the comparison.

29. The smartphone of claim 28, wherein the fifth computer program instructions to compare each risk score to the risk threshold of the intervention rule further comprises:

seventh computer program instructions to compare the risk score to a sponsor notification risk threshold of the intervention rule corresponding to the driving risk for the risk score; and

eighth computer program instructions for transmitting a message to a driver sponsor of the driver indicative of the driving risk.

30. The smartphone of claim 26, wherein the driving situation information comprises at least one of information associated with a vehicle that the driver is driving, or information associated with weather in a location of the vehicle, or information associated with the traffic density on a roadway that the vehicle is traveling.

31. The smartphone of claim 26, further comprising a vehicle interface for communicating with one or more systems of a vehicle that the driver is driving.

32. The smartphone of claim 31, wherein at least a portion of the driving situation information is obtained from the one or more systems of the vehicle.

33. The smartphone of claim 31, wherein the driver intervention comprises a mentoring message presented to the driver by one of an audio system of the vehicle and a display system of the vehicle.

34. The smartphone of claim 26, further comprising a GPS receiver and the driving situation information comprises at least one of a speed or a location of a vehicle that the driver is driving.

35. The smartphone of claim 26, further comprising an accelerometer and a gyroscope and the driving situation information comprises information associated with acceleration of a vehicle that the driver is driving, deceleration of the vehicle, and whether the vehicle is navigating a turn in a road obtained from the accelerometer and gyroscope.

36. The smartphone of claim 26, further comprising a communications module for communicating with a safety analytics center to obtain a driver safety plan for the driver, the driver safety plan comprising the one or more risk identification algorithms for use by the mobile safety center to determine whether the current driving situation corresponds to one of a plurality of driving risks and one or more driver interventions for presenting to the driver if the current driving situation corresponds to a driving risk.

37. The smartphone of claim 26, further comprising a communications module for communicating with a safety analytics center to obtain at least a portion of the driving situation information.

38. The smartphone of claim 37, wherein the portion of driving situation information comprises at least one of information associated with weather in a location of a vehicle the driver is driving, or information associated with the traffic density on a roadway that the vehicle is traveling, or information associated with weather proximal to the driver.

39. The smartphone of claim 26, wherein the mobile safety center module further comprises:

fourth computer program instructions to determine if a vehicle that the smartphone is located is in motion; and

fifth computer program instructions to deactivate voice, text messaging, and email communications capabilities in response to a determination that the vehicle is in motion.

40. A method for generating a first notice of loss, comprising:

running a mobile safety center module on a mobile device associated with a driver;

monitoring and recording by the mobile safety center module information associated with driving situations for the driver;

detecting by the mobile safety center module that a vehicular accident has occurred involving a vehicle associated with the driver;

receiving from the mobile safety center module information regarding the vehicular accident through a user interface for the mobile device; and

issuing by the mobile safety center module a first notice of loss comprising an indication of the vehicular accident and the information regarding the vehicular accident received through the user interface to a master safety analytics center,

wherein information regarding the vehicular accident includes an automatically adjustable risk threshold associated with the driver.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein the mobile device comprises a smartphone.

42. The method of claim 40, wherein the information regarding the accident includes at least one of information regarding injuries, or information regarding location of the vehicle, or information regarding condition of the vehicle, or information regarding other vehicles involved in the vehicular accident, or pictures relating to the vehicular accident.

43. The method of claim 42, wherein the pictures relating to the vehicular accident comprise at least one of a picture of the vehicle, or a picture of other vehicles involved in the vehicular accident, or a picture of a road the vehicle was riding.

44. The method of claim 40, wherein the step of detecting that a vehicular accident has occurred comprises the driver providing an indication to the mobile device that the vehicular accident has occurred.

45. The method of claim 40, wherein the step of detecting that a vehicular accident has occurred comprises the mobile safety center module receiving information from a vehicle system indicating that the vehicle accident has occurred.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the vehicle system comprises a vehicular air bag system.

47. The method of claim 45, wherein the information associated with driving situations comprises at least one of a speed of the vehicle, or information associated with an acceleration of the vehicle, or whether the vehicle is turning, or a following distance of the vehicle in relation to another vehicle.

48. The method of claim 40, further comprising the step of the master safety analytics center sending the first notice of loss to an insurance entity associated with the driver.