Warning for Frequently Traveled Trips Based on Traffic

• US 20140278070A1
• Filed: 11/15/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Moore, Bradford A., Blumenberg, Christopher, Pylappan, Seejo K., van Os, Marcel, McGavran, Christine B., Bolsinga, Gregory D.
• Granted Patent: US 9,631,930 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/465
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3492 employing speed data or traffic data, e.g. real-time or historical traffic control systems for road vehicles involving transmission of navigation instructions to the vehicle G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3617 using user history, behaviour, conditions or preferences, e.g. predicted or inferred from previous use or current movement
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/362 received from an external device or application, e.g. PDA, mobile phone or calendar application
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3691 Retrieval, searching and output of information related to real-time traffic, weather, or environmental conditions arrangements for giving variable traffic instructions G08G1/09
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/04 Inference or reasoning models

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide a novel prediction engine that (1) can formulate predictions about current or future destinations and/or routes to such destinations for a user, and (2) can relay information to the user about these predictions. In some embodiments, this engine includes a machine-learning engine that facilitates the formulation of predicted future destinations and/or future routes to destinations based on stored, user-specific data. The user-specific data is different in different embodiments. In some embodiments, the stored, user-specific data includes data about any combination of the following: (1) previous destinations traveled to by the user, (2) previous routes taken by the user, (3) locations of calendared events in the user'"'"'s calendar, (4) locations of events for which the user has electronic tickets, and (5) addresses parsed from recent e-mails and/or messages sent to the user. In some embodiments, the prediction engine only relies on user-specific data stored on the device on which this engine executes. Alternatively, in other embodiments, it relies only on user-specific data stored outside of the device by external devices/servers. In still other embodiments, the prediction engine relies on user-specific data stored both by the device and by other devices/servers.

Claims

1. A mobile device comprising:

a display screen;

a storage for storing previous locations of the device; and

a prediction engine for formulating predicted destinations for the device based on the previous locations stored in the storage and identifying travel data to the predicted destinations;

said travel data for display on the display screen.

2. The mobile device of claim 1 further comprising at least one processing unit for executing the prediction engine.

3. The mobile device of claim 1 further comprising:

a route identifier for identifying routes to predicted destinations and travel data regarding the identified routes;

wherein the travel data comprises data regarding traffic congestion along identified routes to the predicted destinations.

4. The mobile device of claim 1 further comprising a notification manager for presenting the travel data in notifications displayed on the display screen.

5. The mobile device of claim 4 further comprising a route identifier for identifying routes to predicted destinations and travel data regarding the identified routes, and for providing the travel data to the notification manager.

6. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the notification manager provides notices regarding travel data in a notification center that the notification manager provides to present various notifications in one set of notification areas.

7. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the notification manager provides notices regarding travel data in notification banners that the notification manager automatically presents on the display screen without receiving a request from a user to specifically view the notification banners.

17. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the travel data comprises travel time to a predicted destination, wherein the notification manager provides a notice that a journey to the predicted destination should commence within a particular period of time.

18. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the travel data comprises travel time to a predicted destination, wherein the notification manager provides a notice that to get to the predicted destination at a particular time, a journey to the predicted destination should commence by another particular time.

19. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the notification manager provides for a predicted destination that has a predicted arrival time with a predicted margin of error,

(i) a first notification that a journey to a predicted destination should commence no later than a first particular time in order to reach the predicted destination by a second particular time, when the predicted arrival time has a margin of error larger than a specified value;

(ii) a second notification that a journey to a predicted destination should commence within a particular period of time, when the predicted arrival time has a margin of error smaller than the specified value.

20. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the travel data comprises travel time to a predicted destination, wherein the notification manager provides a notice that a journey to the predicted destination has a particular estimated duration.

21. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the travel data comprises data regarding traffic congestion along an identified route to a predicted destination, wherein the notification manager provides a notice regarding traffic congestion along the identified route and provides a set of one or more routes to the predicted destination as a set of alternative routes to the identified route.

22. The mobile device of claim 4, wherein the travel data comprises data regarding traffic congestion along an identified route to a predicted destination, wherein the notification manager provides a notice regarding traffic congestion along the identified route and provides a selectable option to view a set of one or more routes to the predicted destination as a set of alternative routes to the identified route.

23. The mobile device of claim 4 further comprising

a route processor for initiating the process for identifying travel data regarding routes to predicted destinations;

and

a route generator for generating routes to particular destinations.

24. The mobile device of claim 23, wherein the route processor:

identifies a current location of the device at a particular time,

from the prediction engine, obtains a predicted destination and a predicted arrival time at the predicted destination, for the current location at the particular time,

obtains from an external set of servers a time to travel to the predicted destination,

and directs the notification manager to provide a notice regarding travel to the predicted destination in order to ensure arrival by the predicted arrival time.

25. The mobile device of claim 1 further comprising a traffic monitor for obtaining traffic data to predicted destinations from a source external to the mobile device.

8-16. -16. (canceled)

26. A mobile device comprising a machine readable medium storing sets of instructions for:

storing potential destinations for the device;

identifying a stored destination for a current location of the device;

from an external set of servers, obtaining travel data to travel from the current location to the identified destination; and

providing a notice regarding the travel data.

27. The mobile device of claim 26, wherein the machine readable medium further stores sets of instructions for:

storing an estimated time of arrival for each destination;

identifying a stored, estimated arrival time for the identified stored destination;

wherein the notice regarding the travel data is provided to facilitate arrival by estimated arrival time.

28. The mobile device of claim 27, wherein the sets of instructions for identifying the stored destination and the stored estimated time of arrival for the identified stored destination comprises sets of instructions for identifying the stored destination and the time of arrival for the current location of the device at a particular time.

29. The mobile device of claim 26, wherein the notice provides traffic data along a route from the current location to the identified destination, wherein traffic data includes data regarding at least one of accidents along the route, construction along the route, road closure along the route, and traffic congestion along the route.

34. The mobile device of claim 26, wherein the notice provides traffic data along a route from the current location to the identified destination;

wherein the notice is a comparative expression of the traffic congestion along the route or portion of the route at a current day and time, the comparative expression comparing a current traffic congestion level at the current day and time, to historical traffic congestion levels on comparative times to the current time on prior days.

35. The mobile device of claim 34, wherein the current day is on a particular day in a week, and the comparative times for the historical traffic congestion levels includes times that are identical to the current time or fall within a same time period as the current time on the same day of the week as the particular day.

36. The mobile device of claim 34, wherein the current day is on a day that is not a holiday or a day on the weekend, and

the comparative times for the historical traffic congestion levels includes times that are identical to the current time or fall within a same time period as the current time on days that are neither holidays nor days on the weekends.

37. The mobile device of claim 34,

wherein the current day is on a day that is a holiday or a day on the weekend, and the comparative times for the historical traffic congestion levels includes times that are identical to the current time or fall within a same time period as the current time on days that are either holidays or days on the weekends.

38. The mobile device of claim 29, wherein the traffic data comprises a recommendation regarding a time of departure to depart the current location and travel to the identified destination.

39. The mobile device of claim 29, wherein the traffic data comprises a recommendation regarding a latest departure time for traveling to the identified destination in order to reach the destination by a particular arrival time.

40. The mobile device of claim 26, wherein the set of instructions for storing the destinations comprises a set of instructions for storing destinations derived from the device'"'"'s previous locations.

41. The mobile device of claim 40, wherein the set of instructions for storing the destinations further comprises a set of instructions for harvesting addresses from an application executing on the device and storing the harvested addresses as destinations.

42. The mobile device of claim 41, wherein the application is at least one of a calendar application and an electronic messaging program;

and

wherein the harvested addresses include at least one of locations of calendared appointments and addresses harvested from electronic messages received by the electronic messaging program.

30-33. -33. (canceled)

43-44. -44. (canceled)

45. For a mobile device, a method of providing notifications regarding predicted future destinations of the mobile device, the method comprising:

storing destinations derived from the device'"'"'s previous locations, each destination stored with an estimated time of arrival,

for a current location of the device at a particular time, identifying a stored destination

and a stored, estimated arrival time for the stored destination;

from an external set of servers, obtaining travel data to travel from the current location to the identified destination; and

providing a notice regarding the travel data.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the travel data is provided to facilitate arrival by estimated arrival time.