Assessing inter-modal passenger travel options

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9958280-B2
Application number	US-201213587798-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 16, 2012
Priority date	Aug 16, 2011
Publication date	May 1, 2018
Grant date	May 1, 2018

Abstract

Techniques are described for using information regarding road traffic and other types of transportation-related information to determine and/or assess alternative inter-modal passenger travel options in a geographic area that supports multiple modes of transportation. For example, a particular user may have multiple alternatives for travel from a starting location to a destination location in the geographic area, including to use alternative modes of transportation (e.g., private vehicle, bus, train, walking, etc.) for some or all of the travel, and these alternatives may have different travel-related characteristics in different situations (e.g., depending on current road traffic; mass transit schedules and current actual deviations; travel-related fees for gas, parking, mass transit, etc; parking availability; etc.). Multiple alternative travel options are thus assessed for a given situation based on multiple types of information, enabling one or more preferred travel options for the given situation to be identified and used.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving information about a starting location and a destination location in a geographic area;
determining, by one or more configured computing systems, multiple alternative travel options for a user to travel from the starting location to the destination location at a future time, the multiple alternative travel options each using a distinct combination of one or more modes of transportation from multiple available modes of transportation, wherein one of the multiple modes of transportation involves a private vehicle of the user traveling on one or more roads in the geographic area, wherein another of the multiple modes of transportation includes a mass transit system operating in the geographic area, and wherein the multiple alternative travel options include at least one travel option using the private vehicle of the user and at least one travel option using the mass transit system;
obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about traffic conditions on the one or more roads at the future time by predicting at a current time the traffic conditions on the one or more roads at the future time;
obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, transit vehicle deviation information that indicates expected differences at the future time between scheduled and actual arrival times for transit vehicles of the mass transit system at one or more transit embarkation locations, the obtaining of the transit vehicle deviation information including predicting at the current time the expected differences at the future time between the scheduled and actual arrival times;
assessing, by the one or more configured computing systems, costs associated with using each of the multiple alternative travel options to travel from the starting location to the destination location at the future time, the assessed costs being based at least in part on the obtained information about the traffic conditions and on the obtained transit vehicle deviation information; and
providing information about one or more of the multiple alternative travel options in a manner that reflects the assessed costs, to enable the user to use one of the multiple alternative travel options to travel at the future time from the starting location to the destination location.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more alternative travel options include a first alternative travel option that uses a combination of the mass transit system in the geographic area for a subset of the travel for the first alternative travel option and that includes the use of the private vehicle of the user on the one or more roads for another subset of the travel for the first alternative travel option.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the one or more alternative travel options further include a second alternative travel option that uses only the private vehicle of the user on the one or more roads for the travel for the second alternative travel option.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the one or more alternative travel options further include a second alternative travel option that uses at least two distinct mass transit systems in the geographic area for the travel for the second alternative travel option.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein the one or more alternative travel options further include a second alternative travel option that uses a distinct second combination of a second mass transit system in the geographic area for a subset of the travel for the second alternative travel option and that includes the use of the private vehicle of the user on the one or more roads for another subset of the travel for the second alternative travel option.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the one or more alternative travel options further include a second alternative travel option that uses a distinct second combination of one or more mass transit systems in the geographic area without any use of the private vehicle of the user for the travel for the second alternative travel option.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein the mass transit system in the geographic area uses the one or more roads for at least some of the travel for the first alternative travel option, and wherein the assessing of the costs for the at least one travel option using the mass transit system includes using the obtained information about the traffic conditions and the obtained transit vehicle deviation information.

8. The method of claim 2 wherein the mass transit system in the geographic area does not use the one or more roads for the travel for the first alternative travel option, and wherein the assessing of the costs for the at least one travel option using the mass transit system includes using the obtained transit vehicle deviation information without using the obtained information about the traffic conditions.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, monetary cost information associated with using the multiple available modes of transportation,
and wherein the assessing of the costs associated with using each of the multiple alternative travel options includes assessing one or more monetary costs for each of the one or more alternative travel options based at least in part on the obtained monetary cost information.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, parking cost information about cost of parking at one or more locations for the user to park a private vehicle of the user,
and wherein the assessing of the one or more monetary costs for each of the one or more alternative travel options includes using the obtained parking cost information as part of the assessing of the one or more monetary costs for at least one of the one or more alternative travel options.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the obtaining of the information about the traffic conditions further includes obtaining additional travel time information associated with using the multiple available modes of transportation, and wherein the assessing of the costs for the multiple alternative travel options includes assessing one or more travel time costs for each of the one or more alternative travel options based at least in part on the obtained information about the traffic conditions and on the obtained additional travel time information and on the obtained transit vehicle deviation information.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the obtained additional travel time information includes schedule information for the mass transit system that indicates scheduled arrival time of transit vehicles at transit embarkation locations.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising:
obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, actual transit vehicle deviation information for the current time that indicates differences between the scheduled arrival times for the transit vehicles and actual arrival times for the transit vehicles at the transit embarkation locations;
determining, by one or more configured computing systems, an additional alternative travel option for the user to travel from the starting location to the destination location at the current time that includes using the mass transit system; and
assessing, by the one or more configured computing systems, a cost associated with using the additional alternative travel option based at least in part on the obtained actual transit vehicle deviation information for the current time,
and wherein the providing of the information about the one or more alternative travel options includes providing informat

Assignees

• Scofield Christopher L
• Parikh Kush G
• Schwebel William J
• Inrix Inc

Inventors

• Scofield Christopher L
• Parikh Kush G
• Schwebel William J

Classifications

• G08G1/096838

  where the user preferences are taken into account or the user selects one route out of a plurality · CPC title

• G01C21/3453

  Special cost functions, i.e. other than distance or default speed limit of road segments · CPC title

• G01C21/3423 Primary

  Multimodal routing · CPC title