Controlling queuing in a defined location

• US 8,612,278 B1
• Filed: 03/06/2013
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WirelessWERX IP LLC (Pueblo Nuevo LLC)
• Original Assignee: Wirelesswerx International, Inc.
• Inventors: Ashley, James Jr., Mooney, Patrick, Ashley, James Sr., Blattner, Patrick
• Primary Examiner(s): Marcus, Leland
• Assistant Examiner(s): SCHEUNEMANN, RICHARD N
• Application Number:
  US13/787,623
• Time in Patent Office: 286 Days
• Field of Search: 705 711- 742
• US Class Current: 705/7.25
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42348 Location-based services which utilize the location information of a target
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/027 using movement velocity, acceleration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

A facility includes a location node having a transceiver of wireless signals. It communicates with a central hub and mobile devices in the facility. The nodes are located in a specific location in the facility, and provide data about the movement of the entities in the facility relative to the location. Includes at least one of entry into the location, departure from the location, amount of time spent in the vicinity of the location; and the data being transmitted to the operator in at least one of real time or being for storage and analysis at a later time for use by the operator. There can be a series of location nodes in the facility. The nodes provide data about the movement of the entities in the facility, such data including the travel path of the entities in the facility.

Claims

1. A method of providing a location-based service to an operator of a facility, the facility being a physically defined structure formed by physical walls comprising:

providing in the facility a series of location nodes, the location nodes including transceivers of wireless signals, and being for transmitting the signals received to a central hub for processing the received signals;

the nodes being located in strategic positions in the facility, the nodes being for wireless communication with movable human entities in the facility thereby to establish the location and movement of human entities in the facility, the human entities having wireless communicating units for transmitting and receiving signals wirelessly to the nodes, each unit being unique for each human entity;

the nodes including detection devices, the devices including radio transmitter/receivers, the devices being capable of detecting the zone entry and exit events of the human entities, and wireless communicating units of human entities, the wireless communicating units being a mobile phone equipped with selectively a Bluetooth or WI-FI radio or NFC system;

the nodes providing data about the movement of the human entities in the facility, such data including entry into the facility and departure from the facility, and additionally at least one of amount of time spent in the vicinity of nodes located in strategic positions;

the travel path of the entities in the facility; and

the data being transmitted to the operator in at least one of real time or being for storage and analysis at a later time for use by the operator; and

an algorithm, executed by a computer processor, for processing the data, the data including entry into the facility, departure from the facility and number of stops made throughout the facility,

wherein the algorithm establishes a visitor checkout rate for different size basket visitors from empirical checkout data; and

visitor entry rate and visitor number of stops information is used to determine the number of different sized basket visitors.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the facility includes multiple checkout locations wherein persons leaving the facility need to pass through at least one of the checkout locations prior to leaving the facility, and wherein nodes are located in a physical location to be related to different respective checkout locations of the multiple checkout locations, and wherein data from the location nodes includes at least one of the number of human entities passing through different checkout locations, the speed with which human entities pass through the different checkout locations, and the number of human entities in the vicinity of the different respective checkout locations.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the facility is a shopping business and the checkout locations include registers for receiving payment for items purchased in the shopping business, and the data includes the rate at which entities enter and leave the facility, and at least one of:

the human entity entry volume to the facility,

the amount of time spent by different human entities in the facility;

the amount of time spent in specific areas of the facility;

data relating to distinguish the number of human entities spending different amounts of time in the facility; and

wherein different checkout facilities are designated for low volume shoppers in dedicated checkout facilities and the data includes information about the numbers of the low volume shoppers, and

high volume shoppers, and

the rate of time shoppers spend in the facility and at the checkout locations, and the algorithm processing the data.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the system includes three dimensional geographical zones for characterizing the movement in the three dimensional geographical zones and behavior patterns of a human mobile user moving through an array of the geographical zones, the human user having a mobile phone equipped with selectively a Bluetooth or WI-FI radio or NFC system.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein as a mobile user moves through the store, zone entry and exit events are collected, time stamped, and passed along the networks to the Internet.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the event trail is routed to a remote server and placed in a database for analysis where behavior details are extracted from the entry/exit data.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein the facility is a shopping business and includes checkout locations include registers for receiving payment for items purchased in the shopping business, and the data includes resultant data sets apply applying an the algorithm to manage checkout lane allocations based on visitor rate of entry and visitor rate of checkout, and wherein checkout rates are used to determine lane allocations with a capacity to check out visitors at the same rate as they are entering the store, and

providing for a substantially continuous flow of visitors from entry into the checkout to exit from the checkout and relative to the rate they are entering the store, and the algorithm processing the data.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the algorithm establishes checkout rates, the rates being used to determine the required number of lanes to check out the number of small, medium size and large basket visitors at the same rate as the rate of entry, and wherein the algorithm output is selectively a daily timeline defining the number and type of lane allocations, selectively express and normal lanes for different times of the working day for different days of the week, thereby providing a tool for preplanning store operations and personnel assignments.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the algorithm output is selectively a daily timeline defining the number and type of lane allocations, selectively express and normal lanes, for different times of the working day for different days of the week, thereby providing a tool for preplanning store operations and personnel assignments.

10. The method of claim 2 wherein the facility is a shopping business and the checkout locations include registers for receiving payment for items purchased in the shopping business, and the data includes at least three of:

b) the human entity entry volume to the facility,

d) the rate at which human entities enter and leave the facility;

e) the amount of time spent by different human entities in the facility;

f) data relating to distinguish the number of human entities spending different amounts of time in the facility; and

g) wherein different checkout facilities are designated for low volume shoppers in dedicated checkout facilities and the data includes information about;

1) the numbers of the low volume shoppers, and

2) the numbers of high volume shoppers;

h) the rate of time shoppers spend in the facility,

i) the rate of time shoppers spend at the checkout locations; and

the algorithm processing the data.

11. The method of claim 2 wherein the facility is a shopping business and the checkout locations include registers for receiving payment for items purchased in the shopping business, and the data includes at least:

b) the human entity entry volume to the facility,

d) the rate at which human entities enter and leave the facility;

e) the amount of time spent by different human entities in the facility;

f) data relating to distinguish the number of human entities spending different amounts of time in the facility; and

g) wherein different check-out facilities are designated for low volume shoppers in dedicated checkout facilities and the data includes information about;

1) the numbers of the low volume shoppers, and

2) the numbers of high volume shoppers;

h) the rate of time shoppers spend in the facility,

i) the rate of time shoppers spend at the checkout locations; and

the algorithm processing the data.

12. The method of claim 2 wherein the facility is a shopping business and the checkout locations include registers for receiving payment for items purchased in the shopping business, and the data includes

b) the human entity entry volume to the facility,

d) the rate at which human entities enter and leave the facility;

the amount of time spent by different human entities in the facility;

e) data relating to distinguish the number of human entities spending different amounts of time in the facility; and

f) wherein different checkout facilities are designated for low volume shoppers in dedicated checkout facilities and the data includes information about;

1) the numbers of the low volume shoppers, and

2) the numbers of high volume shoppers;

g) the rate of time shoppers spend in the facility,

j) the rate of time shoppers spend at the checkout locations; and

the algorithm processing the data.

13. The method of claim 10 including identifying the same human entities repetitively when they are repetitively in the facility, and thereby obtain data about the shopping activities of that human entity.

14. The method of claim 10 including identifying the human entities independently of the shopping basket, and thereby obtain data about the shopping activities of that human entity.

15. A method of providing a location-based service to an operator of a facility comprising:

providing in the facility a location node, the location node including a transceiver of wireless signals, and being for transmitting the signals received to a central hub for processing the received signals;

the node being located in a specific location in the facility, the node being for wireless communication with movable human entities in the facility thereby to establish the location and movement of human entities in the facility, the human entities having wireless communicating units for transmitting and receiving signals wirelessly to the node, each unit being unique for each human entity;

each node including detection devices, the devices including radio transmitter/receivers, the devices being capable of detecting the zone entry, dwell and exit events of the human entities, and wireless communicating units of human entities, the wireless communicating units being a mobile phone equipped with selectively a Bluetooth or WI-FI radio or NFC system;

the node providing data about the movement of the human entities in the facility relative to the location such data including entry into the location and departure from the location amount of time spent in the vicinity of the location; and

the data being transmitted to the operator in at least one of real time or being for storage and analysis at a later time for use by the operator, and

an algorithm, executed by a computer processor, for processing the data, the data including entry into the location and departure from the location,

wherein the algorithm establishes a visitor checkout rate for different size basket visitors from empirical checkout data; and

visitor entry rate and visitor number of stops information is used to determine the number of different sized basket visitors.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the facility includes at least one checking location, and wherein persons passing through the facility need to pass of the checking location, and wherein a node is located in a physical location to be related to the at least one checking location and wherein data from the location nodes includes the number of entities passing through the checking location, the speed with which entities pass through the checking location, the number of entities in the vicinity of the checking location.

17. A system for providing a location-based service to an operator of a facility-comprising:

a location node in the facility, the location node including a transceiver of wireless signals, and being for transmitting the signals received to a central hub for processing the received signals;

the node being located in a specific location in the facility, the node being for wireless communication with movable human entities in the facility thereby to establish the location and movement of human entities in the facility, the entities having wireless communicating units for transmitting and receiving signals wirelessly to the node, each unit being unique for each human entity;

the node including a detection device, the device including a radio transmitter/receiver, the device being capable of detecting the zone entry, dwell and exit events of the human entities, and wireless communicating units of human entities, the wireless communicating units being a mobile phone equipped with selectively a Bluetooth or WI-FI radio or NFC system;

the node providing data about the movement of the human entities in the facility relative to the location such data including the entry into the location, the departure from the location, and the amount of time spent in the vicinity of the location; and

the data being transmitted to the operator in at least one of real time or being for storage and analysis at a later time for use by the operator, and

an algorithm, executed by a computer processor, for processing the data, the data including entry into the location and departure from the location,

wherein the algorithm establishes a visitor checkout rate for different size basket visitors from empirical checkout data; and

visitor entry rate and visitor number of stops information is used to determine the number of different sized basket visitors.

18. The system of claim 17 including

a series of location nodes in the facility, the location nodes including transceivers of wireless signals, and being for transmitting the signals received to a central hub for processing the received signals;

the nodes being located in spaced apart positions in the facility, the nodes being for wireless communication with movable human entities in the facility thereby to establish the location and movement of human entities in the facility, the human entities having wireless communicating units for transmitting and receiving signals wirelessly to the nodes;

the nodes including a detection device, the device including a radio transmitter/receiver, the device being capable of detecting the zone entry and exit events of the human entities, and wireless communicating units of human entities, the wireless communicating units being a mobile phone equipped with selectively a Bluetooth or WI-FI radio or NFC system;

the nodes providing data about the movement of the human entities in the facility, such data including the amount of time spent in the vicinity of nodes located in the spaced apart positions;

the travel path of the human entities in the facility; and

the data being transmitted to the operator in at least one of real time or being for storage and analysis at a later time for use by the operator.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the facility includes multiple checkout locations, wherein persons leaving the facility need to pass through at least one of the checkout locations prior to leaving the facility, and wherein nodes are located in a physical location to be related to different respective checkout locations of the multiple checkout locations, and wherein data from the location nodes includes at least one of the number of entities passing through different checkout locations, the speed with which entities pass through the different checkout locations, and the number of entities in the vicinity of the different respective checkout locations.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the facility is a shopping business and the checkout locations include registers for receiving payment for items purchased in the shopping business, and the algorithm relating the data, the data includes the rate at which entities enter and leave the facility, and at least one of:

the human entity checkout rate from the facility;

the human entity entry volume to the facility, the human entity entry volume relative to different time periods;

the amount of time spent by different human entities in the facility;

data relating to distinguish the number of human entities spending different amounts of time in the facility; and

wherein different checkout facilities are designated for the low volume shoppers in dedicated checkout facilities, and the data includes

information about the numbers of the low volume shoppers, and high volume shoppers, and

the rate of time shoppers spend in the facility and at the checkout locations.

21. The system of claim 19 wherein the location is a retail store, the store being divided into multi-dimensional zones.

22. The system of claim 19 wherein the facility is a shopping business and the checkout locations include registers for receiving payment for items purchased and the data is obtained by applying the algorithm establishing checkout rates and determining the required number of lanes to check out the number of small and large basket visitors at the same rate as the rate of entry into the facility.

23. The system of claim 17 wherein the facility includes at least one checking location, and wherein persons passing through the facility need to pass through at least one of the checking location, and wherein a node is located in a physical location to be related to the at least one checking location, and the algorithm relating the data, wherein data from the location nodes includes at least one of the number of entities passing through the checking location, the speed with which entities pass through the checking location, and the number of entities in the vicinity of the checking location.

24. The system of claim 17 wherein the facility includes an indicator for posting waiting times, selectively including a communication by interact, telephone, message or a display.

25. The system of claim 20 including identifying the same human entities repetitively when they are repetitively in the facility, and thereby obtain data about the shopping activities of that human entity.

26. The system of claim 20 including identifying the human entities independently of the shopping basket, and thereby obtain data about the shopping activities of that human entity.