Method, Apparatus, and Product for distribution-based incentives relating to resource consumption

• US 20140006235A1
• Filed: 06/28/2012
• Published: 01/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ronen, Amir, Garg, Dinesh
• Application Number:
  US13/535,390
• Publication Number:
  US 20140006235A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/145 Payments according to the detected use or quantity
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing

Abstract

A system, method and product for distribution-based incentives relating to resource consumption. The system comprising: a receiver configured to obtain from one or more monitoring devices monitoring information relating to resource consumption by a consumer over a space, wherein the space is partitioned into slots, wherein based on the monitoring information a consumption tuple of a consumer can be determined; a distribution obtaining module for obtaining a predetermined distribution of consumption of the resource, which is associated with the consumer; and a price computation module configured to compute a price of consumption by the consumer based on the consumption tuple, wherein the price is computed using a pricing function which is based on the predetermined distribution, whereby a price associated with resource consumption in a slot depends upon resource consumption in other slots.

Claims

1. An apparatus having a processing unit and a storage device, the apparatus comprising:

a receiver configured to be executed by the processing unit and stored on the storage device, the receiver configured to obtain from one or more monitoring devices monitoring information relating to resource consumption by a consumer over a space, wherein the space is partitioned into slots, wherein based on the monitoring information a consumption tuple of a consumer can be determined;

a distribution obtaining module configured to be executed by the processing unit and stored on the storage device, the distribution obtaining module configured for obtaining a predetermined distribution of consumption of the resource, which is associated with the consumer; and

a price computation module configured to be executed by the processing unit and stored on the storage device, the price computation module processing unit configured to compute a price of consumption by the consumer based on the consumption tuple, wherein the price is computed using a pricing function which is based on the predetermined distribution received by the distribution obtaining module, whereby a price associated with resource consumption in a slot depends upon resource consumption in other slots.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the pricing function gets a global extremum in case values of the consumption tuple are distributed in accordance with the predetermined distribution, and wherein the pricing function is monotone in the consumption tuple.

3. The system of claim 1 being operatively coupled to a billing system, wherein the billing system is configured to issue invoices to consumers based on the price computed by the price computation module.

4. The system of claim 1 being operatively coupled to a billing system, wherein the billing system is configured to issue credit notes to consumers based on the price computed by the price computation module.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the pricing function (F) is

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the pricing function is

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the predetermined distribution is a-priori agreed upon between the consumer and a resource provider.

8. The system of claim 1 configured to be utilized with respect to a plurality of consumers, each associated with potentially different predetermined distributions, wherein aggregating the predetermined distributions forms a desired aggregative distribution.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein at least two consumers are associated with different predetermined distributions, whereby a crowd of consumers is incentivized to consume the resource in accordance with the desired aggregative distribution by incentivizing only a part of the crowd to consume the resource in accordance with the desired aggregative distribution.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the desired aggregative distribution is based also upon an estimated consumption distribution of consumers for which said price computation module is not configured to compute the price of consumption.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the space is partitioned over units defined based on at least one of the following:

time and location.

12. The system of claim 1,

wherein the resource is usage of road infrastructure;

wherein the one or more monitoring devices are capable of monitoring vehicles associated with the consumers using the road infrastructure; and

wherein the predetermined distribution is configured to avoid usage of the road infrastructure during relatively congest slots.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more monitoring devices are selected from the group consisting of:

sensors located near-by the road infrastructure, wherein the sensors are configured to detect which of the vehicle drives on the road infrastructure; and

mobile sensors which are installed in the vehicles and that are capable of detecting when the vehicles utilize the road infrastructure.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the resource is a waste removal system;

and wherein the one or more monitoring devices are one or more meters configured to measure usage of the waste remove system by the consumer and convey the monitoring information to said receiver.

15. A method performed by a computer having a processor and a memory, the method comprising:

receiving from one or more monitoring devices monitoring information relating to resource consumption by a consumer over a space, wherein the space is partitioned into slots, wherein based on the monitoring information a consumption tuple of a consumer can be determined;

obtaining a predetermined distribution of consumption of the resource associated with the consumer;

computing a price of consumption consumed by the consumer based on the consumption tuple, wherein the price is computed using a pricing function which is based on the predetermined distribution, whereby a price associated with resource consumption in a slot depends upon resource consumption in other slots; and

transmit the price to a billing system for outputting the price to the consumer, thereby providing an incentive to the consumer to change resource consumption.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the pricing function gets a global extremum in case values of the consumption tuple are distributed in accordance with the predetermined distribution, and wherein the pricing function is monotone in the consumption tuple.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the pricing function (F) is

19. The method of claim 15, wherein said receiving, obtaining and computing is performed with respect to a plurality of consumers, each associated with potentially different predetermined distributions, wherein aggregating the predetermined distributions forms a desired aggregative distribution.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein for each consumer of the plurality of consumers the predetermined distribution is a-priori agreed upon with a resource provider providing the resource.

17. (canceled)