System and method for analyzing performance data in a transit organization

• US 9,697,491 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2013
• Issued: 07/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trapeze Software ULC (Constellation Software Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Trapeze Software ULC (Constellation Software Incorporated)
• Inventors: Keaveny, Ian, Hinds, Sebastien James, Kerr, Andrew Henry Leitch
• Primary Examiner(s): Alizada, Omeed
• Application Number:
  US14/134,960
• Publication Number:
  US 20150178661A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,293 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and method for analyzing performance data in a transit organization. Accelerometer metrics are collected for a vehicle along a first axis. The metrics collected from the vehicle are summarized by unit measurement. The metrics summarized by unit measurement are then stored in storage.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing the performance of a driver of a vehicle, using one or more metrics, in a transit organization, comprising:

collecting, from one or more sources of acceleration data on the vehicle in each collection period during a unit measurement, metrics, the metrics comprising a set of acceleration metrics from the vehicle;

obtaining a set of worst possible scores for the metrics during the unit measurement;

summarizing said metrics from each collection period collected from said vehicle during the unit measurement; and

scoring the performance of the driver of the vehicle for the unit measurement based on the summarizing and the obtaining, creating a score per unit measurement;

associating a driver with a vehicle by comparing planned service data and actual service data;

wherein planned service data is indicative of a driver scheduled to operate the vehicle prior to data being collected and actual service data is based on a driver identification system within the vehicle once the vehicle is in operation;

wherein said scoring the performance of the driver accounts for said driver driving different vehicles as determined by said associating a driver with a vehicle step.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of acceleration metrics comprise:

a longitudinal positive acceleration, indicative of forward acceleration of the vehicle, a longitudinal negative acceleration, indicative of backward acceleration of the vehicle, a lateral positive acceleration, indicative of right turning acceleration of the vehicle, and a lateral negative acceleration, indicative of left turning acceleration of the vehicle.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the summarizing comprises selecting said metrics having the largest magnitudes within collection periods as being representative of said collection periods.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the summarizing comprises adding up, for each metric, the values collected during the collection period and dividing by the number of values collected during the collection period, for each collection period.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising calculating a jerkiness metric, for each of the metrics from each collection period, from the set of accelerometer metrics and wherein the metrics further comprise the jerkiness metric.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said calculating comprises calculating the change in a metric for two consecutive collection periods.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the calculating further comprises:

adding a jerkiness penalty if the change in any metric for two consecutive periods is greater than an acceptable increment.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the acceptable increment is greater than 60% or less than −

60%.

9. The method of claim 6 wherein the summarizing further comprises:

comparing, for each metric and for each collection period, the metric to a range of metric values, the range of metric values being divided into one or more range values each range value having a metric penalty;

applying the metric penalty based on which range value the metric is in; and

summing, for each metric, the metric penalties for each of the collection periods to create a set of metric sums.

10. The method of claim 5 wherein each metric has one or more different metric penalties.

11. The method of claim 5 wherein the scoring further comprises:

weighting, by a set of weighting factors where each weighting factor corresponds to one of the metric sums in the set of metric sums, each metric sum in the set of metric sums to create a set of weighted metric sums;

adding the set of weighted metric sums and dividing the added set of weighted metric sums by the sum of the weighting factors in the set of weighting factors.

12. A system for analyzing the performance of a driver of a vehicle, using one or more metrics, in a transit organization, comprising:

a set of acceleration data sources;

an on-board unit (OBU) configured to;

collect, from one or more sources of acceleration data on the vehicle in each collection period during a unit measurement, metrics, the metrics comprising a set of acceleration metrics from the vehicle;

transmit the metrics to a application data server; and

an application data server, configured to;

receive the metrics from the OBU;

obtain a set of worst possible scores for the metrics during the unit measurement;

summarize said metrics from each collection period collected from said vehicle during the unit measurement; and

score the performance of the driver of the vehicle for the unit measurement based on the summarizing and the obtaining, creating a score per unit measurement associate a driver with a vehicle by comparing planned service data and actual service data;

wherein planned service data is indicative of a driver scheduled to operate the vehicle prior to data being collected and actual service data is based on a driver identification system within the vehicle once the vehicle is in operation;

wherein said scoring the performance of the driver accounts for said driver driving different vehicles as determined by said associating a driver with a vehicle.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the set of acceleration metrics comprise:

a longitudinal positive acceleration, indicative of forward acceleration of the vehicle, a longitudinal negative acceleration, indicative of backward acceleration of the vehicle, a lateral positive acceleration, indicative of right turning acceleration of the vehicle, and a lateral negative acceleration, indicative of left turning acceleration of the vehicle.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the summarizing comprises adding up, for each metric, the values collected during the collection period and dividing by the number of values collected during the collection period, for each collection period.

15. The system of claim 14 further comprising calculating a jerkiness metric, for each of the metrics from each collection period, from the set of accelerometer metrics, by calculating the change in a metric for two consecutive collection periods, and adding a jerkiness penalty if the change in any metric for two consecutive periods is greater than an acceptable increment, and wherein the metrics further comprise the jerkiness metric.