Vehicle operator performance history recording, scoring and reporting systems

• US 20080122603A1
• Filed: 11/07/2006
• Published: 05/29/2008
• 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: Nickerson, Andrew, Mauro, Gregory, Kasavaraju, Ramesh, Plante, James
• Granted Patent: US 8,989,959 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/439
• 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. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure comprising:

an associator;

a data store; and

an analyzer,

said associator is arranged to receive event records and operator identity information and to form an association therebetween, and further to form a dataset comprising event record information and operator identity and finally to transmit the dataset to said data store,

said analyzer is arranged to receive at least one dataset from said data store, and further to apply mathematical analysis to elements of said received datasets to produce a vehicle operator performance measure.

2. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 1, further comprising a set of electronic transducers coupled to vehicle environments or vehicle systems arranged to capture and digitize information relating to vehicle operation or performance.

3. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 2, said associator is coupled to said set of electronic transducers whereby outputs from the electronic transducers are received together as event records by the associator.

4. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 3, further comprising an operator identity system, said associator is coupled to said operator identity system whereby it may receive a digital representation of an operator identity therefrom.

5. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 3, said sensors include any of those from the group:

imager;

accelerometer;

speedometer;

position;

orientation;

time; and

any of standard vehicle systems status indicators including;

engine speed, temperature;

braking;

gear ratio; and

steering position.

6. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 3, further comprising a vehicle event recorder, the vehicle event recorder is comprised of at least one imager, memory;

and event trigger, the vehicle event recorder arranged to produce event records in response to toggle of said event trigger.

7. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 2, further coupled to an event trigger whereby toggle of the event trigger causes information from said sensors to be captured as a portion of an event record and further to be associated with a particular operator identity.

8. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 2, further coupled to an event trigger whereby toggle of the event trigger causes information from a video recorder to be captured as a portion of an event record and further to be associated with a particular operator identity.

9. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 1, said associator is coupled to an operator identity system such that information which uniquely identifies an operator is conveyed to the associator.

10. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 9, said operator identity system includes a memory with stored values associated with at least one particular operator.

11. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 10, said operator identity system is integrated with a vehicle event recorder.

12. ) Systems for producing a vehicle operator performance measure of claim 10, said operator identity system is integrated download server.

13. ) Apparatus for providing a performance measure for operators of vehicles comprising:

an associator;

a data store; and

an analyzer;

said associator has input ports coupled to an event record provider and operator identity system and further has an output coupled to said data store;

said analyzer has an input port coupled to said data store and an output arranged to provide a performance measure indicative of the driving performance of a particular person.

14. ) Apparatus for providing a performance measure for operators of vehicles of claim 13, said associator comprises a logic processor arranged to receive information and assemble information according to protocol demanded at a database.

15. ) Apparatus for providing a performance measure for operators of vehicles of claim 13, said analyzer comprises:

a graphical user interface;

a query facility; and

an algorithm library, the graphical user interface coupled and arranged to;

receive inputs from a user;

to drive query formation in agreement with received inputs; and

to select algorithms from the algorithm library.

16. ) Apparatus for providing a performance measure for operators of vehicles of claim 13, further comprises a vehicle event recorder comprising:

a video camera;

sensors and transducers;

an event trigger; and

a memory, the video camera, sensors and transducers being coupled to the memory via the event trigger whereby event record information is passed to the memory in response to a trigger toggle action.

17. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record, comprising the steps:

receiving an event record;

receiving identity information;

forming an association between received event record and received identity information;

forming a dataset record comprising;

event record, identity information, and association therebetween;

storing said dataset record in a database;

recalling a plurality of dataset records from said database;

applying a mathematical analysis upon elements of the dataset records; and

providing an output report based in-part upon results of the applied mathematical analysis.

18. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

receiving an event record’

step is further characterized as receiving from a vehicle event recorder information captured in response to a triggered event.

19. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 18, said information captured in response to a triggered event includes a video record of environments about a subject vehicle.

20. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

receiving identity information’

step is further characterized as receiving at an associator a unique identifier assigned to a particular vehicle operator.

21. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

receiving identity information’

step is further characterized as receiving at an associator a unique identifier assigned to a particular vehicle or vehicle fleet.

22. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

forming an association’

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

23. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

forming a dataset record’

step comprising creating a well-formed database record including event record information, identity information, and association therebetween;

said well formed 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 identity information.

24. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

recalling a plurality of dataset records’

step is further characterized as recalling only those records associated with a particular operator.

25. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

recalling a plurality of dataset records’

step is further characterized as recalling only those records associated with a particular vehicle.

26. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

recalling a plurality of dataset records’

step is further characterized as recalling only those records associated with a particular fleet.

27. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 23, said ‘

applying mathematical analysis’

step is further characterized as executing 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.

28. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 27, said ‘

applying mathematical analysis’

step is further characterized as executing an algorithm to realize a ratio between the resultant of two algorithms applied to two different field elements.

29. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 28, said ratio comprises a time based unit in the denominator.

30. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 28, said ratio comprises a distance based unit in the denominator.

31. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

providing an output report’

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

32. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 31, 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.

33. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 32, said single value is additionally based upon weighted coefficients being applied to algorithm resultants.

34. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

providing an output report’

step is further characterized as producing a text and graphic indicia on printed media.

35. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 17, said ‘

providing an output report’

step is further characterized as producing a text and graphic display at on an opto-electric display device.

36. ) Methods of producing an operator performance record of claim 35, the report includes hyperlinks having URLs associated with video captured in response to an event trigger.