Route Risk Mitigation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016189306-A1
Application number	US-201514697131-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Apr 27, 2015
Priority date	May 10, 2007
Publication date	Jun 30, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method is disclosed for mitigating the risks associated with driving by assigning risk values to road segments and using those risk values to select less risky travel routes. Various approaches to helping users mitigate risk are presented. A computing device is configured to generate a database of risk values. That device may receive accident information, geographic information, vehicle information, and other information from one or more data sources and calculate a risk value for the associated road segment. Subsequently, the computing device may provide the associated risk value to other devices. Furthermore, a personal navigation device may receive travel route information and use that information to retrieve risk values for the road segments in the travel route. An insurance company may use this information to determine whether to adjust a quote or premium of an insurance policy. This and other aspects relating to using geographically encoded information to promote and reward risk mitigation are disclosed.

First claim

1 . A method, comprising:
receiving, at a telematics device, accident information comprising an accident location and accident loss information; calculating, by the telematics device, a value based at least in part on the accident information; associating the value with a road segment containing the accident location; and storing the value in a data store.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein accident information comprises accident time and accident date.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein accident information comprises vehicle direction.

4 . The method of claim 1 comprising:
receiving, at the telematics device from a location detection device, geographic information corresponding to the road segment containing the accident location; and
wherein the calculating is further based at least in part on the geographic information.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the road segment comprises all roads no farther than a predetermined radius from a road segment identifier.

6 . The method of claim 1 comprising:
in response to receiving a request for a risk value associated with a particular location, retrieving a value corresponding to a road segment containing the particular location.

7 . The method of claim 1 comprising:
in response to receiving a request for a risk value associated with a particular location, sending a value associated with the road segment considering vehicle direction through the particular location.

8 . A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing a method comprising:
receiving, at a telematics device, accident information, wherein the accident information comprises accident location, accident loss information, and vehicle direction; calculating, by the telematics device, a value based at least in part on the accident information; associating, by the telematics device, the value with a road segment containing the accident location; and in response to receiving a request for a risk value associated with a particular location, sending a value associated with a road segment containing the particular location.

9 . The computer-readable medium of claim 8 further comprising computer-executable instructions for performing a method comprising:
receiving, from a location detection device, geographic information corresponding to the road segment containing the accident location; and
wherein the calculating is further based at least in part on the geographic information.

10 . The computer-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the value is calculated using an accident cost severity rating approach.

11 . The computer-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the telematics device comprises a global positioning satellite unit configured to determine a location of the telematics device.

12 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the road segment has a higher risk score for a vehicle travelling in a first direction and the same road segment has a lower risk score for a vehicle traveling in a second direction, and wherein the sending is performed by the telematics device in the vehicle.

13 . A telematics apparatus, comprising:
a processor; and a non-transitory memory device containing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the telematics apparatus to perform steps comprising
receive accident information comprising an accident location and accident loss information;
calculate a value based at least in part on the accident information;
associate the value with a road segment containing the accident location; and
store the value in a data store.

14 . The telematics apparatus of claim 13 , wherein accident information comprises accident time and accident date.

15 . The telematics apparatus of claim 13 , wherein accident information comprises vehicle direction.

16 . The telematics apparatus of claim 13 wherein the computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the telematics apparatus to:
receive, from a location detection device, geographic information corresponding to the road segment containing the accident location; and
wherein the calculating is further based at least in part on the geographic information.

17 . The telematics apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the road segment comprises all roads no farther than a predetermined radius from a road segment identifier.

18 . The telematics apparatus of claim 13 wherein the computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the telematics apparatus to:
in response to receiving a request for a risk value associated with a particular location, retrieve a value corresponding to a road segment containing the particular location.

19 . The telematics apparatus of claim 13 wherein the computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the telematics apparatus to:
in response to receiving a request for a risk value associated with a particular location, send a value associated with the road segment considering vehicle direction through the particular location.

20 . The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the telematics device comprises one or more of a global positioning satellite unit or a mobile positioning unit configured to determine a location of the telematics device.

Assignees

• Allstate Insurance Co

Inventors

• Bogovich Jason Brian
• Jordan Peters Julie A

Classifications

• G06Q40/08 Primary

  Insurance · CPC title

• G01C21/3461

  Preferred or disfavoured areas, e.g. dangerous zones, toll or emission zones, intersections, manoeuvre types or segments such as motorways, toll roads or ferries · CPC title

• H04W4/024

  Guidance services · CPC title

• G08G1/096816

  where the complete route is transmitted to the vehicle at once · CPC title

• G08G1/205

  Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental · CPC title