Privacy protected public transit data mining method and system for effective passenger detouring

• US 9,672,740 B2
• Filed: 07/15/2014
• Issued: 06/06/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2014
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Zhu, Jiang, Mysur, Kaushik Triyambaka, Ikeda, Hirokazu, Matsunami, Naoto
• Primary Examiner(s): Mawari, Redhwan K
• Assistant Examiner(s): WHALEN, MICHAEL F
• Application Number:
  US14/331,577
• Publication Number:
  US 20160018231A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,057 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/005 including pedestrian guidance indicator
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/123 indicating the position of vehicles, e.g. scheduled vehicles; Managing passenger vehicles circulating according to a fixed timetable, e.g. buses, trains, tramstransmission of navigation instructions to vehicles G08G1/0968
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

A method and system that provides detouring services to passengers and transportation operators. Transportation operators send data indicating prior uses of the operator to the passengers'"'"' mobile device and the system on the mobile device compiles the data to form travel patterns of the passenger. The travel patterns are assigned a probability indicating the frequency the travel pattern is used by the passenger. When a disruption of a service of an operator occurs, a detouring service provides detour suggestions to the passengers and travel demand changes to the operators. In another approach, an in-station display displays suggested detour routes based on the top destinations of stranded passengers and the passenger'"'"'s mobile phones are not used to display or perform detouring.

Claims

1. A traveling method for a passenger that uses one or more transportation operators, the method comprising the steps of:

generating, by the one or more transportation operators, a plurality of trip patterns which indicate use of one or more services provided by the one or more operators based on transit data collected by the one or more operators that is unique to a passenger, and each of the trip patterns includes an origin location, a destination location, and a time range having a beginning time and an end time;

calculating, by the one or more transportation operators, a frequency value of each of the trip patterns, each of the frequency values indicates a frequency that a trip pattern is used by the passenger during a period of time based on the transit data, and each frequency value is calculated by dividing a number of times one of the respective trip patterns is used by the passenger during the period of time;

sending, by the one or more transportation operators, the trip patterns and the calculated frequency values to a mobile device of the passenger;

receiving, by the mobile device of the passenger, the trip patterns and the calculated frequency values from the one or more operators;

associating, by the mobile device of the passenger, combinations of two or more of the trip patterns with each other to generate a plurality of travel patterns based on at least one of whether a destination of one trip pattern is the same as an origin of another trip pattern and whether an end time of the time range of the one trip pattern is within a predetermined time of a beginning time of the time range of the another trip pattern, wherein each of the travel patterns is assigned a travel pattern frequency value, which is based on a frequency value of a trip pattern of the travel pattern thereof;

sending, by the one or more transportation operators, disruption information which includes a starting location, an ending location, a starting time, and a service resume time;

receiving, by the mobile device of the passenger, the disruption information;

determining, by the mobile device of the passenger, whether the passenger is affected by comparing the disruption information with the travel patterns;

requesting, by the mobile device of the passenger, a detour when the passenger is affected;

receiving, by the mobile device of the passenger, a detour suggestion; and

displaying, by the mobile device of the passenger, the detour suggestion and the disruption information.

2. The method for mining travel patterns of a passenger according to claim 1, wherein

the transit data are records stored by the one or more operators and generated by the use of a smart card.

3. The method for mining travel patterns of a passenger according to claim 1, wherein

each of the travel patterns indicate a complete journey of the passenger from one location to another location and include one or more of the trip patterns different from other ones of the travel patterns.

4. The method for mining travel patterns of a passenger according to claim 1, wherein the determining whether the corresponding one of the passengers is affected includes comparing the disruption information with the travel patterns having travel pattern frequencies greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold.

5. A passenger detouring system providing service disruption information, detour suggestion information to a plurality of passengers, and travel demand change information to one or more transportation operators providing transportation services to the passengers, comprising:

one or more operator computing systems corresponding to each of the one or more transportation operators, each of the operator computing systems including a database storing transit data collected by the transportation operator that corresponds to each of the passengers,

a detouring service provider computing system coupled to another database;

a plurality of passenger mobile devices, each including a storage device and a computing unit, that correspond to the passengers, respectively,

wherein the operator computing systems, detouring service provider and passenger mobile devices communicate via one or more networks,

wherein each of the operator computing systems is respectively configured to;

generate a plurality of trip patterns for each of the passengers based on the transit data stored in the database, each of the trip patterns includes an origin location, a destination location, and a time range having a beginning time and an end time; and

calculate a frequency value of each of the trip patterns, and each of the frequency values indicates a frequency that a trip pattern is used by one of the passengers during a period of time based on the transit data, and each frequency value is calculated by dividing a number of times one of the respective trip patterns is used by the one of the passengers during the period of time,

wherein the computing unit of each of the mobile devices is respectively configured to;

receive the trip patterns and the calculated frequency values for a corresponding one of the passengers from the one or more operators,

associate combinations of two or more of the trip patterns with each other to generate a plurality of travel patterns based on at least one of whether a destination of one trip pattern is the same as an origin of another trip pattern and whether an end time of the time range of the one trip pattern is within a predetermined time of a beginning time of the time range of the another trip pattern, wherein each of the travel patterns is assigned a travel pattern frequency value, which is based on a frequency value of a trip pattern of the travel pattern;

receive disruption information which includes a starting location, an ending location, a starting time, and a service resume time from at least one of the operator computing systems;

determine whether the corresponding one of the passengers is affected by comparing the disruption information with the travel patterns; and

request a detour when the corresponding one of the passengers is affected;

wherein the detouring service provider computing system is configured to;

search for one or more detours based on one or more detour requests from the mobile devices,

generate one or more detour suggestions based on the detours found in the search,

transmit the detour suggestions in response to the detour request from the mobile devices,

analyze travel demand changes indicating a change in a number of passengers using one or more of the services of one or more of the transportation operators based on the detour requests and detour suggestions, and

send travel demand changes to the one or more of the transportation operators.

6. The passenger detouring system according to claim 5, wherein the computing unit of each of the mobile devices is respectively configured to:

determine whether the corresponding one of the passengers is affected by comparing the disruption information with the travel patterns which have travel pattern frequencies greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold.

7. The passenger detouring system according to claim 5, wherein the computing unit of each of the mobile devices is respectively configured to:

determine whether the corresponding one of the passengers is affected by comparing the disruption information with the travel patterns having travel pattern frequencies greater than or equal to a predetermined threshold.