Patent Issued for Incentivizing and/or penalizing vehicle renters based on telematics data (USPTO 11823257): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2023 DEC 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Brannan, Joseph Robert (Bloomington, IL, US), Gross, Ryan (Normal, IL, US), Harvey, Brian N. (Bloomington, IL, US), Riley, Sr., Matthew Eric (Heyworth, IL, US), Wilson, J. Lynn (Normal, IL, US), filed on February 16, 2022, was published online on November 21, 2023.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11823257 is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Current technologies make use of vehicle telematics data to assess driving behavior. For example, the telematics data may be collected and analyzed to determine the acceleration, braking and/or cornering habits of a driver of a vehicle, and the results of the analysis may be used to measure the performance of the driver over time. The telematics data may be generated by sensors on the vehicle, or by a personal electronic device (e.g., smart phone) carried by the driver, for example. The measured performance may then be used for various purposes, such as modifying an insurance rating of the driver. More recently, it has been proposed that telematics data also be used in connection with car rental services, including peer-to-peer car rentals, to score potential renters (e.g., so that vehicle owners may avoid renting their vehicles to certain types of drivers).

“Typically, car rental services utilize terms of a rental agreement to constrain renter use of the rented vehicle. However, such terms are not able to constrain or limit many driving behaviors of a renter while the renter is operating a vehicle. This may occur because car rental services are not able to detect such driving behaviors, and as a result the car rental services cannot incorporate such driving behaviors into a rental agreement. Thus, car rental services may rely on the vehicle owner trusting the renter to not misuse the rented vehicle. However, vehicle owners may hesitate to trust renters they do not personally know. Unconstrained use of the rented vehicle on the part of the renter may result in increased maintenance and the associated costs and time for the vehicle owner. For example, frequent hard braking by renters may require that the owner replace the brake pads and rotors more often. This is especially problematic for vehicle owners in peer-to-peer vehicle rental services. For these vehicle owners, the rented vehicle may be their primary vehicle, and associated costs and times of maintenance may be unmanageable.

“For these reasons, there is a need for systems and methods that mitigate the problems of vehicle owner hesitation with respect to renting a vehicle and facilitate the rental of more vehicles for the vehicle renters with less risk to the vehicle owners.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present embodiments may, inter alia, utilize telematics data indicative of operation of a rented vehicle by the driver/renter during a period of time to apply one or more penalties and/or incentives to the driver, as agreed upon in the terms for renting the vehicle from the owner. In this way, the embodiments may establish trust between the owner of the vehicle and renter (or at least, provide the owner with a certain comfort level even if the renter cannot be fully trusted) by detecting and incentivizing or penalizing driving behaviors.

“In one aspect, a method of incentivizing and/or penalizing vehicle renters may include receiving, at one or more processors, an indication that a driver has agreed to terms for renting a vehicle from an owner of the vehicle. The terms may include potential application of penalties or incentives to the driver based on driving behavior. The method may also include receiving, at the one or more processors, telematics data collected over a period of time. The telematics data may be indicative of operation of the rented vehicle by the driver during the period of time. The method may also include identifying, by the one or more processors analyzing the telematics data, one or more driving behaviors of the driver during the period of time. The method may also include determining, by the one or more processors, and for each driving behavior of the one or more driving behaviors, a corresponding state of an environment of the rented vehicle when the driving behavior occurred. The method may also include causing, by the one or more processors, one or more penalties or incentives to be applied to the driver, based on the one or more driving behaviors and the corresponding states of the environment of the rented vehicle.

“In another aspect, a tangible, non-transitory computer-readable medium may store instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to receive an indication that a driver has agreed to terms for renting a vehicle from an owner of the vehicle. The terms may include potential application of penalties or incentives to the driver based on driving behavior. The instructions may also cause the one or more processors to receive telematics data collected over a period of time. The telematics data may be indicative of operation of the rented vehicle by the driver during the period of time. The instructions may also cause the or more processors to identify one or more driving behaviors of the driver during the period of time. The instructions may also cause the one or more processors to determine for each driving behavior of the one or more driving behaviors, a corresponding state of an environment of the rented vehicle when the driving behavior occurred. The instructions may also cause the one or more processors to cause one or more penalties or incentives to be applied to the driver, based on the one or more driving behaviors and the corresponding states of the environment of the rented vehicle.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising: establishing a first communication link between one or more processors and a mobile device disposed within a vehicle; receiving, at the one or more processors and via the first communication link, first telematics data collected over a period of time, wherein the first telematics data is indicative of operation of the vehicle by a driver during the period of time; establishing a second communication link, separate from the first communication link, between the one or more processors and a processor of the vehicle; receiving, at the one or more processors and via the second communication link, second telematics data, captured by a sensor of a data collection device, separate from the mobile device and associated with the vehicle, during the period of time; determining, by the one or more processors and based on a first subset of the first telematics data and the second telematics data, a first driving behavior of the driver, wherein the first driving behavior occurs during a first length of time; determining, by the one or more processors and based on a second subset of the first telematics data and the second telematics data, a second driving behavior of the driver, wherein the second driving behavior occurs during a second length of time greater than the first length of time; determining, by the one or more processors, first environmental conditions existing while the first driving behavior was exhibited by the driver; determining, by the one or more processors, and based at least in part on the first environmental conditions, one or more threshold values corresponding to the first telematics data and the second telematics data; and causing, by the one or more processors, one or more penalties or incentives to be applied to an account of the driver, based on a comparison between values associated with the first and the second driving behaviors, and the one or more threshold values.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, by the one or more processors, and based on the first subset of the telematics data, a time and location associated with the first driving behavior; and accessing, by the one or more processors, and based on the time and location, the first environmental conditions from a third-party server.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first environmental conditions comprise one or more of: visibility conditions, weather conditions, traffic conditions, or road conditions.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first environmental conditions are determined based on the first subset of the first telematics data and the second telematics data, and include at least one of: a vehicle disposed proximate the vehicle, or a pedestrian disposed proximate the vehicle.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the second subset of the telematics data comprises telematics data collected over the second length of time.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the first and the second driving behavior includes determining one or more values of the first and the second subsets of the telematics data respectively.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the first and the second driving behavior comprises determining a weighted sum of one or more values of the first and the second subsets of the telematics data respectively.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the second telematics data includes one or more of: on-board diagnostic information, data captured by on-board sensors, collision warning systems outputs, automated safety system outputs, or lane departure system outputs.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first driving behavior is associated with one or more of: turning behavior, braking behavior, or accelerating behavior.

“10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, by the one or more processors and based on the first and the second driving behaviors, a driving score associated with the driver and corresponding to the period of time, wherein the one or more penalties or incentives is caused to be applied to the driver based at least in part on the driving score.

“11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the one or more processors and from an owner of the vehicle, one or more user preference values corresponding to the first and the second driving behaviors; determining, by the one or more processors, that the first driving behavior or the second driving behavior does not satisfy the one or more user preference values; and causing, by the one or more processors, an electronic message to be transmitted to the owner, wherein the electronic message indicates that the one or more penalties or incentives have been applied to the account of the driver.

“12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, by the one or more processors and based on the telematics data, a time when the vehicle is stopped; and causing, by the one or more processors, an electronic message to be transmitted to a device associated with the driver during the time when the vehicle is stopped, wherein the electronic message indicates that the one or more penalties or incentives have been applied to the account of the driver.

“13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more penalties or incentives are caused to be applied in accordance with terms agreed upon between the driver of the vehicle and an owner of the vehicle.

“14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, by the one or more processors and based at least in part on a total number of instances of the first driving behavior occurring during a length of time beginning with the first length of time and having a duration greater than the first length of time, a composite driving metric; and determining, by the one or more processors, one or more composite threshold values corresponding to the composite driving metric, wherein causing the one or more penalties or incentives to be applied to an account of the driver is further based on comparison between values associated with the second driving behavior and the composite threshold values.

“15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the composite driving metric comprises an average number of instances of the first driving behavior during the length of time.

“16. A system comprising: one or more processors; and non-transitory computer-readable media storing first computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: establishing a first communication link between one or more processors and a mobile device disposed within a vehicle; receiving, via the first communication link, first telematics data collected over a period of time, wherein the first telematics data is indicative of operation of the vehicle by a driver during the period of time; establishing a second communication link, separate from the first communication link, between the one or more processors and a processor of the vehicle; receiving, at the one or more processors and via the second communication link, second telematics data, captured by a sensor of a data collection device, separate from the mobile device and associated with the vehicle, during the period of time; determining, based on a first subset of the first telematics data and the second telematics data, a first driving behavior of the driver, wherein the first driving behavior occurs during a first length of time; determining, based on a second subset of the first telematics data and the second telematics data, a second driving behavior of the driver, wherein the second driving behavior occurs during a second length of time, the second length of time being greater than the first length of time; determining first environmental conditions existing while the first driving behavior was exhibited by the driver; determining, based at least in part on the first environmental conditions, one or more threshold values corresponding to the first telematics data and the second telematics data; determining, based on a comparison between values associated with the first and the second driving behaviors, and the one or more threshold values, one or more penalties or incentives; and causing the one or more penalties or incentives to be applied to an account of the driver.

“17. The system of claim 16, the operations further comprising: receiving an indication that the driver has agreed to terms for renting the vehicle from an owner of the vehicle, wherein the terms include potential application of penalties or incentives to the driver based on driving behavior; and causing an electronic message to be transmitted to the driver, wherein the electronic message indicates that the one or more penalties or incentives have been applied.

“18. The system of claim 16, wherein determining the second driving behavior comprises: determining a total number of instances of the first driving behavior occurring during the second length of time; and determining, based on the total number of instances of the first driving behavior, an average number of instances of the first driving behavior during the second length of time.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For additional information on this patent, see: Brannan, Joseph Robert. Incentivizing and/or penalizing vehicle renters based on telematics data. U.S. Patent Number 11823257, filed February 16, 2022, and published online on November 21, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11823257)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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