Elevator – industrial lift truck – or stationary lift for vehicle – With call registration means – Shared by plural load supports
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-20
2002-05-28
Salata, Jonathan (Department: 2837)
Elevator, industrial lift truck, or stationary lift for vehicle
With call registration means
Shared by plural load supports
C187S388000, C187S247000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06394231
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for communication with a transport system that comprises vehicles of high autonomy and in which at least one man/machine interface is provided for the input of travel destinations and for information of the user.
A transport system in which several elevator cars run autonomously in an elevator shaft is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,658,155. Each elevator car has an own drive and can move horizontally as well as vertically. On one side of the elevator shaft the elevator cars, guided by rails, travel up and on the other side of the elevator shaft the elevator cars travel back to the starting point. For serving the floors, the elevator cars branch from the vertical main direction into a horizontal blind alley. The branches are controlled by points. Due to the lack of details about the communication of the passengers with the transport system, the assumption is that the autonomous elevator cars work in taxi operation. If a floor call is present, an elevator car travels to the floor calling and thereafter carries out the transport request of the user.
A disadvantage of the known equipment is that the transport capacity of the transport system cannot be fully utilized. Moreover, a dividing up of the flow of people is not possible.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention concerns a method for communication with a transport system having vehicles of high autonomy relative to serving users and in which at least one man/machine interface is provided for input by a user of travel destinations and information of the user. The method comprises the steps of: a. providing a terminal at a boarding floor for inputting a travel destination transport request of a user, the transport request including information related to a starting position and a destination position; b. sending the transport request from the terminal to each of a plurality of vehicles that can serve the travel request; c. examining for each of the vehicles a feasibility of serving the transport request; d. sending from the vehicles to the terminal at least one offer to serve the travel request; e. when at least two offers are received by the terminal, selecting a boarding location and a vehicle for serving the transport request; and communicating an identification of the selected boarding location and the selected vehicle to the user in symbol form.
Here, the present invention creates a remedy. The present invention meets the object of avoiding the disadvantages of the known equipment and of proposing a method that improves the communication of the user with a transport system with autonomous vehicles and improves the vehicle utilization.
The advantage achieved by the present invention is that a dividing up of the flow of people amongst the autonomous vehicles can take place unhindered. The time for boarding the appropriate vehicle can be minimized, which in turn facilitates route planning and improves the transport performance of the entire transport system. Moreover, it is ensured that the user actually uses the vehicle provided for him even when the boarding location is not only associated with the provided vehicle.
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Friedli Paul
Schuster Kilian
Inventio AG
MacMillan Sobanski & Todd LLC
Salata Jonathan
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