Frequency based transit trip characterizations

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10401180-B2
Application number	US-201514869699-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 29, 2015
Priority date	Jun 7, 2015
Publication date	Sep 3, 2019
Grant date	Sep 3, 2019

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a map application that identifies a transit route between a starting location and a destination location. The transit route, in some embodiments, comprises a set of transit legs that each is serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line and a set of walking distances. The map application of some embodiments generates a frequency of departures for transit vehicles of each transit line in the set of transit lines from a first transit station of the transit leg that is serviced by the transit line. The map application of some such embodiments further generates a frequency of departures for the entire transit route.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application executable by at least one processing unit of a device, the map application comprising sets of instructions for:
inputting a destination location;
identifying a position of the device based on data input from a position sensor;
identifying a navigation mode based in part on the position of the device;
if the navigation mode is a transit navigation mode, the map application further comprises sets of instructions for:
identifying a transit route between a starting location based on a position of the device and the destination location, the transit route comprising a set of transit legs, each serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line, and a set of walking distances;
categorizing the transit line as one of a first category and a second category based on a frequency of departure of transit vehicles of the transit line;
when the transit line is categorized as the first category, displaying a departure schedule in a frequency of departures format for (i) transit vehicles of the transit line from a first transit station of the transit leg serviced by the transit line, and (ii) an entire transit route; and
when the transit line is categorized as the second category, displaying the departure schedule in an absolute time format for the transit vehicles and the entire transit route.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the first category is associated with a high frequency transit line and the second category is associated with a low frequency transit line, and wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as one of the high frequency transit line and the low frequency transit line.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 2 , wherein the set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station on average at least once every certain period of time, and wherein the set of instructions of categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station of average less than once every certain period of time.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule comprises a set of instructions for:
sending the identified transit route to a map service running on a set of servers;
receiving a frequency of departures from the map service; and
displaying the departure schedule by including the received frequency of departures.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule comprises sets of instructions for:
receiving a plurality of departure times of the transit line at a particular transit station;
generating a sequence of time intervals between each successive pair of departure times; and
determining how to express the generated sequence in terms of the frequency of departures of the transit line.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5 , wherein the set of instructions for displaying the departure schedule further comprises a set of instructions for, after generating the sequence of time intervals, sorting the generated sequence.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5 , wherein the set of instructions for said determining comprises a set of instructions for determining to express the generated sequence with one of an exact time, an approximate time, and a time range.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 5 , wherein the set of instructions for determining how to express the generated sequence comprises sets of instructions for:
determining whether the sequence is expressible with an exact or approximate time; and
when the sequence is neither expressible with the exact time, nor with the approximate time, determining whether the sequence is expressible with a time range.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the exact time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a small threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the time range comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a pair of values from a set of pairs of Gaussian distributions expresses the sequence of time intervals.

11. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the set of instructions for determining whether the sequence is expressible with the approximate time comprises a set of instructions for determining whether a single number within a large threshold expresses the sequence of time intervals.

12. An electronic device comprising:
a set of processing units for executing sets of instructions; and
a non-transitory machine readable medium storing a map application executable by at least one of the processing units of the device, the map application comprising sets of instructions for:
device;
inputting a destination location;
identifying a position of the device based on data input from a position sensor;
identifying a navigation mode based in part on motion data from a motion sensor of the if the navigation mode is a transit navigation mode, the map application further comprises sets of instructions for:
identifying a transit route between a starting location and a destination location, the transit route comprising a set of transit legs that each is serviced by transit vehicles of a transit line;
categorizing the transit line as one of a first category and a second category based on a frequency of departure of transit vehicles of the transit line;
when the transit line is categorized as the first category, displaying a departure schedule in a frequency of departures format for (i) transit vehicles of the transit line from a first transit station of the transit leg serviced by the transit line, and (ii) the entire transit route; and
when the transit line is categorized as the second category, displaying the departure schedule in an absolute time format for the transit vehicles and the entire transit route.

13. The electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the first category is associated with the high frequency transit line and the second category is associated with the low frequency transit line, and wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as one of the high frequency transit line and the low frequency transit line.

14. The electronic device of claim 13 , wherein the set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the high frequency transit line when the transit vehicles of the transit line depart from the first transit station on average at least once every certain period of time, and wherein the set of instructions of categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line comprises a set of instructions for categorizing the transit line as the low frequency transit line when th

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Pirwani Imran A
• Roberts Stanley E
• Hodge David
• Sabol Cameron
• Hajj Usama M
• Leighton Ian
• Tesov Alexander
• Fischer Kaspar
• Galloway Curtis

Classifications

• G01C21/20

  Instruments for performing navigational calculations (G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence) · CPC title

• G06F3/04842

  Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements (G06F3/0482 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G01C21/3484

  Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles · CPC title

• G01C21/3667

  Display of a road map (G01C21/3614 takes precedence; guidance using 3D or perspective road maps G01C21/3635) · CPC title

• G06F3/0485

  Scrolling or panning · CPC title