System and methods for verifying that one or more directives that direct transport of a second end user does not conflict with one or more obligations to transport a first end user

• US 10,657,468 B2
• Filed: 05/21/2018
• Issued: 05/19/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Lord, Richard T., Lord, Robert W., Myhrvold, Nathan P., Tegreene, Clarence T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Marc, McDieunel
• Application Number:
  US15/985,652
• Publication Number:
  US 20180268329A1
• Time in Patent Office: 729 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083

Abstract

Computationally implemented methods and systems that are designed for receiving one or more first directives that direct a transportation vehicle unit to transport a first end user; receiving, while the transportation vehicle unit is en route to or is transporting the first end user, one or more second directives that direct the transportation vehicle unit to transport a second end user while transporting the first end user, the transportation vehicle unit having been determined to be able to accommodate transport of the second end user while transporting the first end user; and verifying that compliance with the one or more second directives will not conflict with one or more obligations to transport the first end user by the transportation vehicle unit. In addition to the foregoing, other aspects are described in the claims, drawings, and text.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

circuitry for receiving one or more directives that direct a transportation vehicle unit to a first location, the transportation vehicle unit traveling toward a second location and having been determined to be able to travel to the first location while the transportation vehicle unit is traveling toward the second location; and

circuitry for confirming that compliance with the one or more directives will not conflict with one or more obligations to travel to the second location by the transportation vehicle unit.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry for receiving one or more directives that direct a transportation vehicle unit to a first location, the transportation vehicle unit traveling toward a second location and having been determined to be able to travel to the first location while the transportation vehicle unit is traveling toward the second location comprises:

circuitry for receiving the one or more directives when the transportation vehicle unit is within a threshold time period from reaching the second location.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry for receiving one or more directives that direct a transportation vehicle unit to a first location, the transportation vehicle unit traveling toward a second location and having been determined to be able to travel to the first location while the transportation vehicle unit is traveling toward the second location comprises:

circuitry for receiving transport rate data that indicates a transport rate for traveling to the first location by the transportation vehicle unit.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry for receiving one or more directives that direct a transportation vehicle unit to a first location, the transportation vehicle unit traveling toward a second location and having been determined to be able to travel to the first location while the transportation vehicle unit is traveling toward the second location comprises:

circuitry for receiving transport rate data that indicates a premium transport rate for traveling to the first location that is higher than a transport rate for traveling to the second location.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more obligations define one or more conditional directives that permit the transportation vehicle unit to travel to the first location while the transportation vehicle unit is traveling toward the second location only if traveling to the first location does not cause a delay in traveling to the second location that is greater than a predefined amount of maximum permitted delay.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more obligations define one or more conditional directives that permit the transportation vehicle unit to travel to the first location while the transportation vehicle unit is traveling toward the second location only if traveling to the first location does not cause a delay in traveling to the second location that is greater than a 20 minutes of maximum permitted delay.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry for confirming that compliance with the one or more directives will not conflict with one or more obligations to travel to the second location by the transportation vehicle unit comprises:

circuitry for confirming that the transportation vehicle unit is in the proximate vicinity of the first location.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the circuitry for confirming that compliance with the one or more directives will not conflict with one or more obligations to travel to the second location by the transportation vehicle unit comprises:

circuitry for confirming that the transportation vehicle unit is scheduled for traveling within a threshold distance to the first location when traveling to the second location.

9. A system, comprising:

circuitry configured for receiving one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit, the transportation vehicle unit assigned for traveling to a destination, and at least one estimated time of arrival of the transportation vehicle unit for traveling to the destination;

circuitry configured for providing, via at least one display of at least one electronic device, one or more indications at least partially based on the one or more identities of the transportation vehicle unit and on the at least one estimated time of arrival of the transportation vehicle unit for traveling to the destination, and further configured for updating the at least one display of the electronic device with one or more updated indications of identities of the transportation vehicle unit or one or more updated estimated times of arrival of the transportation vehicle unit.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the circuitry configured for receiving one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit, the transportation vehicle unit assigned for traveling to a destination, and at least one estimated time of arrival of the transportation vehicle unit for traveling to the destination comprises:

circuitry configured for receiving at least one indication of one or more of make, model, license plate number, or driver name of the at least one transportation vehicle unit.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the circuitry configured for receiving one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit, the transportation vehicle unit assigned for traveling to a destination, and at least one estimated time of arrival of the transportation vehicle unit for traveling to the destination comprises:

circuitry configured for receiving one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit assigned in response to a transmitted request for the traveling of the transportation vehicle unit to a destination.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the circuitry configured for receiving one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit assigned in response to a transmitted request for the traveling of the transportation vehicle unit to a destination comprises:

circuitry configured for receiving, by a smartwatch, one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit assigned in response to a transmitted request for the traveling of the transportation vehicle unit to a destination, the request transmitted by a smartphone.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the circuitry configured for receiving, by a smartwatch, one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit assigned in response to a transmitted request for the traveling of the transportation vehicle unit to a destination, the request transmitted by a smartphone comprises:

circuitry configured for receiving, from a first web service, the one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit assigned in response to a transmitted request for the traveling of the transportation vehicle unit to a destination, the request transmitted to a second web service by the smartphone, the one or more identities of the transportation vehicle unit received by the first web service from the second web service and relayed to the smartwatch.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the circuitry configured for receiving, from a first web service, the one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit assigned in response to a transmitted request for the traveling of the transportation vehicle unit to a destination, the request transmitted to a second web service by the smartphone, the one or more identities of the transportation vehicle unit received by the first web service from the second web service and relayed to the smartwatch comprises:

circuitry configured for receiving the one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit at the smartwatch from the first web service subsequent to transmission by the smartphone of the request to a package delivery service as the second web service.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the circuitry configured for receiving one or more identities of a transportation vehicle unit, the transportation vehicle unit assigned for traveling to a destination, and at least one estimated time of arrival of the transportation vehicle unit for traveling to the destination comprises:

circuitry configured for receiving the one or more identities of the transportation vehicle unit and the at least one estimated time of arrival of the transportation vehicle unit from a first web service subsequent to the first web service receiving one or more login credentials associated with a package delivery service and requesting one or more transportation vehicle unit status updates associated with the one or more login credentials from the package delivery service.

16. A system, comprising:

circuitry configured for ascertaining, at least partially based on at least one hardware-based position sensor of at least one electronic device, at least one direction and at least one distance associated with the transportation vehicle unit relative to a rendezvous location; and

circuitry configured for providing, via the at least one display of the at least one electronic device, at least one indication of the at least one position of the transportation vehicle unit relative to a rendezvous location, and further configured for updating the at least one display of the electronic device with one or more updated indication of the at least one position of the transportation vehicle unit.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the circuitry configured for ascertaining, at least partially based on at least one hardware-based position sensor of the at least one electronic device, at least one direction and at least one distance associated with the transportation vehicle unit relative to a rendezvous location comprises:

circuitry configured for ascertaining, at least partially based on at least one GPS sensor of at least one smartwatch, at least one direction and at least one distance associated with the transportation vehicle unit relative to a rendezvous location.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the circuitry configured for ascertaining, at least partially based on at least one hardware-based position sensor of at least one electronic device, at least one direction and at least one distance associated with the transportation vehicle unit relative to a rendezvous location comprises:

circuitry configured for ascertaining, at least partially based on at least one hardware-based position sensor of the at least one electronic device, at least one location of the transportation vehicle unit in real-time with at least one of car-length or footstep granularity.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the circuitry configured for providing, via the at least one display of the at least one electronic device, at least one indication of the at least one position of the transportation vehicle unit relative to a rendezvous location comprises:

circuitry configured for causing at least one display of at least one smartwatch to output at least one of make, model, license plate number, or driver name of the at least one transportation vehicle unit.

20. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

circuitry configured for providing, via the at least one display of the at least one electronic device, an estimate of an amount of time to the rendezvous location destination from a current location of the transportation vehicle unit.