Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Navigation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-27
2002-04-16
Chin, Gary (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Navigation
C701S213000, C701S204000, C340S988000, C340S994000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06374176
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to scheduling systems for public transit vehicles. It relates in particular to a passenger information system for providing near real time prediction of arrival times of public transit vehicles at selected boarding or disembarkation points.
DISCUSSION OF THE RELATED TECHNOLOGY AND NEEDED FEATURES
Often complained of problems associated with public transportation include time wasted waiting for public transit vehicles to arrive at a passenger's particular transit stop, and uncertainty as to service and/or arrival time at transit connections or destinations. To verify this, one need only observe bus riders standing in the street at travel stops looking as far down the road as possible, attempting to see the next bus, and doing so several times in the course of waiting for even one bus. A transit vehicle line operator usually publishes a schedule indicating arrival and departure times of vehicles for the line's routes. The transit vehicle line operator, however, is often unable to maintain the schedule, particularly at peak traffic times, for reasons such as traffic conditions, weather conditions, passenger load, and vehicle malfunction. Furthermore, no matter how well an operator is able to maintain a schedule, a passenger who uses public transit or a particular line infrequently, or a passenger from outside of the area in which the particular transit vehicle operates, is unlikely to have a schedule readily available.
A passenger waiting at a transit stop for a transit vehicle cannot know for certain when the next vehicle will arrive at the stop. If a passenger arrives at the stop only a minute or so before a scheduled arrival time, and the next vehicle does not arrive at that time, the passenger may be uncertain as to whether or not the vehicle may have arrived and departed before he or she reached the stop, or if the vehicle will ever arrive. Such uncertainty, can, of course, be reduced by arriving sufficiently early at the stop to avoid missing a vehicle. This, however, consumes time, which essentially extends the duration of what may already be a long journey, and which might be better spent by the passenger in other more enjoyable and/or more productive activities.
Public transit passengers could make use of wasted waiting time and associated passenger stress could be reduced if a public transit vehicle arrival information system were available. Such a predictor would eliminate much of the stress related to public transit use. With such a predictor, waiting time could be used for more useful purposes, such as an extended stay at the passenger's point of origin, shopping, work, or neighborhood exploration.
For passengers using commuter buses at peak hours another point of uncertainty may be the availability of unoccupied seats or even standing room on an arriving vehicle. Even if a waiting passenger is relatively certain that a vehicle will arrive on time, the passenger may not be certain that an empty seat will be available when the vehicle arrives, or after any other waiting passengers in a line in front of the passenger have boarded. In this regard, a predictor of passenger load (passenger load includes seat load and/or standing load) could be a valuable adjunct to a predictor of arrival.
It should be noted that it may be desirable to determine seat load and available seats or seat spaces separately from standing room load and available standing space because, for example, the type of space available may affect a potential passenger's decision whether to ride a particular transit vehicle, wait for another bus at the same stop, go to a different stop, etc.
By way of example, a bus line may operate two or more vehicle routes between a waiting passenger's boarding point and end destination. Travel time between the boarding and destination point along the shortest route may be forty-five minutes, and along the longest route may be sixty minutes. If a passenger waiting for the next arriving shortest-route vehicle at the boarding point were aware that only standing room would be available on the shortest-route vehicle, but that a seat would be available on a longest-route vehicle, (accurately) predicted to arrive at the passenger's stop or boarding point at a given time, for example, five minutes ahead or five minutes behind the shortest route vehicle, in most cases, the passenger would opt for a seat on the longest-route vehicle. The additional ten or twenty minutes travelling time could be easily justified by the ability to read, work, sleep or simply travel more comfortably.
In contrast to the above situation, where a passenger's ride is relatively short or where arrival time is more important than seat availability (for example, the passenger has little time to spare to reach work or an appointment and thus cannot wait for other buses or use a longer-route bus), the prospective passenger may elect to take the earliest scheduled arriving bus, if it has either seat or standing space.
For passengers already riding on a transit vehicle, useful information would include notice of cross streets, notice of upcoming transit stops, notice of connecting transit lines, notice of local stores and business services, the time available before the connecting transit line vehicle arrives at the transfer stop, as well as its passenger load. Such passengers may also be interested in knowing the time available between service on the same route before a following vehicle will arrive at the same vehicle stop, or the time available before a vehicle arrives going in the return direction. With such information the transit rider would know if it is time efficient to get off the transit vehicle to run an errand at a neighborhood business and catch a subsequent transit vehicle.
For transit system supervision to efficiently manage distribution of vehicles in the system, it is desirable to have available information such as the location of all vehicles operating in the system, the average speed of vehicles between various points in the system and predicted passenger loads between various points in the system.
For transit vehicle operators, receiving timely operating instructions or orders from transit system supervision would be very useful in preventing the bunching of vehicles and other inefficient use of transit vehicle capacity. Examples of such instructions include: wait; you are ahead of schedule xx minutes, reduce speed as conditions permit; speed up; you are behind schedule xx minutes, speed up as conditions and speed limit permit; skip stops; transfer passengers to other vehicles; turn back; special stops; alternate routes; etc.,
In summary, while an accurate predictor of the time of arrival would be particularly useful for a user of public transit vehicles, the usefulness of such predictors would be enhanced by making the associated status information widely available to the public and transit operators in real time, and by making the information available via a wide variety of displays and other access devices. In addition, the enjoyment and usefulness would be enhanced by providing additional status information such as the availability of seats on arriving vehicles, status information related to the location of a particular transit vehicle or vehicles, and by providing non-status information such as public announcements, news briefs and advertisements.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a system for notifying a passenger waiting for a public transit vehicle of the arrival time of the vehicle at a public stop. The system is applicable to a wide variety of vehicles such as boats, airplanes, helicopters, automobiles, vans, buses, trolleys, trains, etc. operating along aboveground routes, or combination aboveground routes and underground routes including tunnels. The system also is applicable to vehicles which travel along tracks, as well as to those which travel along road surfaces. Typically, the vehicle travels a predetermined route and may be
Freda Paul
Schmier Kenneth J.
Chin Gary
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP
Nextbus Information Systems, Inc.
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