OPTIMIZED ROUTE PLANNING AND PERSONALIZED REAL-TIME LOCATION-BASED TRAVEL MANAGEMENT

• US 20100280748A1
• Filed: 05/20/2010
• Published: 11/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RouteRank Ltd.
• Original Assignee: RouteRank Ltd.
• Inventors: Waibel, Markus, Mundinger, Jochen
• Granted Patent: US 9,261,374 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/200
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3423 Multimodal routing, i.e. combining two or more modes of transportation, where the modes can be any of, e.g. driving, walking, cycling, public transport
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3438 Rendez-vous, i.e. searching a destination where several users can meet, and the routes to this destination for these users; Ride sharing, i.e. searching a route such that at least two users can share a vehicle for at least part of the route
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/047 Optimisation of routes or paths, e.g. travelling salesman problem
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083

Abstract

A method for optimized route planning for a user, including:

• (a) determining a departure point and a destination point for multimodal travel;
• (b) based on said departure point and destination point, computing and proposing criteria for restricting the number of candidate routes to consider,
• (c) proposing an updated list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point, said updated list being either:
  • i) automatically displayed after a delay, and/or:
  • ii) based on user selection of said criteria.

Claims

1. A method for optimized route planning for a user, including:

(a) determining a departure point and a destination point for multimodal travel;

(b) based on said departure point and destination point, computing and proposing criteria for restricting the number of candidate routes to consider,

(c) proposing an updated list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point, said updated list being either;

i) automatically displayed after a delay, and/or;

ii) based on user selection of said criteria.

2. The method of claim 1, said criteria comprising one or more among:

a list of candidate routes, and/or

a list of candidate route segments, and/or

a list of candidate geographical nodes, such as for example airports, and/or

a list of candidate transportation modes,

wherein said user selection of criteria includes selection or exclusion of one or more members in one of said lists.

3. The method of claim 1, said criteria including a provisional list of candidate routes or route segments or geographical nodes or transportation modes that may be pre-selected or excluded,

said updated list including additional candidate routes and/or additional information on the candidate routes in the provisional list.

4. The method of claim 1, said criteria including a provisional list of candidate routes or route segments or geographical nodes or transportation modes, based on consideration of a first set of metrics,

said updated list being based on a more comprehensive set of metrics.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the computation of said criteria is based on rough estimates of travel durations and/or costs.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the computation of said updated list is based on a more precise estimate of travel duration and/or costs.

7. The method claim 4, wherein said metric includes one or more among the followings:

robustness, for example probability of delays;

popularity of the route or of some route segments;

preferred mode of transportation;

subjective information in the form of comments or suggestions about past travels;

data collected from past travels of other users;

weather, disaster or political condition forecasts;

data from travel literature;

statistically collected data on travel duration and/or delays for some segment.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein objective and subjective metrics are used, the method comprising a step of combining said objective and subjective metrics using artificial intelligence for creating a combined metric.

9. The method of claim 1, comprising:

computing a first list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point based on a rough estimate of travel durations and/or costs;

computing said updated list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point based on a more precise estimate of travel durations and/or costs;

automatically and without user intervention displaying said updated list after is has been computed.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising:

computing a first list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point;

computing an updated list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point, said updated list being based at least on;

the probability of delays along each or some routes;

subjective information in the form of comments or suggestions made by other users who travelled along each or some routes;

weather forecasts;

popularity of the route or of some route segments among users.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising automatically learning user preferences based on selections and/or observations during travel, and improving/updating user profiles by taking into account these facts.

12. The method of claim 1, comprising optimization of a joint travel of different users along one or sè

veral route segments, taking into account different user preferences.

13. The method of claim 1, comprising proposing one route comprising a segment of joint travel with at least one another user.

14. The method of claim 1, comprising:

(a) determining a departure point and a destination point for a first user;

(b) determining a departure point and a destination point for at least a second user;

(c) based on said departure points and destination points of said first and said second user, computing a list of candidate routes for each of said users, each of said candidate routes comprising at least one joint segment.

15. The method of claim 4, wherein said list of candidate routes takes into account preferences of each said user.

16. The method of claim 1, comprising proposing a route with one vehicle and proposing one vehicle among sè

veral vehicles, wherein the selection of the vehicle takes into account the number of available seats, the consumption, the comfort and/or other preferences of the users.

17. The method of claim 1, comprising a step of proposing a new route to a first user based on unexpected è

vents during a travel made by a second user.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the route planning is executed for a single package or other object, or group of packages or other objects and user preferences are determined via an IT system, a logistics service provider, a transport manager, one or more of the couriers along the route, or the sender.

19. System comprising

a routing engine for computing at least one metric associated with a plurality of candidate routes between a departure point and a destination point, and for proposing criteria for restricting the number of candidate routes to consider;

said routing engine being arranged for proposing an updated list of possible routes between said departure point and said destination point, said updated list being either;

i) automatically displayed after a delay, and/or;

ii) based on user selection of said criteria.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein a metric used for computing said criteria includes a rough estimates of travel duration and/or costs, while a metric used for computing said updated list includes a more precise estimate of travel duration and/or costs, and/or user preferences.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein computation is based on least one of the followings metrics:

robustness, for example probability of delays;

popularity of the route or of some route segments;

preferred mode of transportation;

subjective information in the form of comments or suggestions about past travels;

data collected from past travels;

weather forecasts;

data from travel literature;

statistically collected data on travel duration and/or delays for some segments.

22. The system of claim 19, adapted to automatically learn user preferences based on user selections and observations during travel.

23. The system of claim 19, comprising:

means for computing a first list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point based on a rough estimate of travel durations and/or costs;

means for computing said updated list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point based on a more precise estimate of travel durations and/or costs;

means for displaying automatically and without user intervention said updated list after is has been computed.

24. The system of claim 19, comprising:

means for computing a first list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point;

means for computing an updated list of candidate routes between said departure point and said destination point, said updated list being based at least on;

the probability of delays along each or some routes;

subjective information in the form of comments or suggestions made by other users who travelled along each or some routes;

weather forecasts;

popularity of the route or of some route segments among users.

25. The system of claim 19, comprising:

(a) means for determining a departure point and a destination point for a first user;

(b) means for determining a departure point and a destination point for at least a second user;

(c) means for computing a list of candidate routes for each of said users based on said departure points and destination points of said first and said second user, each of said candidate routes comprising at least one joint segment.

26. The system of claim 19, wherein the route planning is executed for a single package or other object, or group of packages or other objects and user preferences are determined via an IT system, a logistics service provider, a transport manager, one or more of the couriers along the route, or the sender.

27. A method for optimized route planning for a first and for a second traveller who want to make a joint travel, including:

(a) determining a departure point and a destination point for said first traveller;

(b) determining a departure point and a destination point for said second traveller;

(c) based on said departure points and destination points of said first and said second traveller, computing a list of candidate routes for each of said travellers, each of said candidate routes comprising at least one joint segment.