Patent Issued for Multi-Stop Route Selection System (USPTO 10,775,181)

2020 SEP 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Schreier, Elizabeth (Glenview, IL); Grahn, Jamie Elizabeth (Lakemoor, IL), filed on June 11, 2018, was published online on September 28, 2020, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 10,775,181 is assigned to Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, and other types of mobile computing devices, are becoming increasingly popular for a variety of purposes. In some cases, mobile devices, such as smartphones, make people’s lives easier by allowing them to connect with various applications and complete different tasks quickly. For example, users may employ mobile devices in personal and business settings to manage their work, connect with others, manage finances, participate in social media, play games, navigate to various destinations, and the like.

“Users may utilize their mobile devices while at home, at work, at the grocery store, or even while commuting. That is, it may become more prevalent for users to employ their mobile devices while driving in their vehicles. Users may operate their mobile devices while driving to and from several destinations. For example, a driver may have a busy schedule at work and may use his or her phone to prepare for his or her work day and/or navigate to one or more locations for various meetings. In another example, a driver may have various errands to do and may use his or her mobile device to navigate to locations for each errand using his or her mobile phone.

“Ultimately, users may depend on a variety of mobile applications (e.g., applications designed specifically for use with specially designed mobile device operating systems) while driving in order to navigate directions, listen to music, communicate with others, access their calendars before a busy work day, or for other varying services provided by the mobile applications. Unfortunately, many of the mobile applications require users to enter a relatively large amount of user information, and the mobile applications might not be able to learn patterns from the user’s behaviors or environment in order to provide accurate and intuitive services that are customized to each user.

“In some cases, it may be beneficial for users to have access to a customized service that provides navigation for users while driving and enhances each user’s driving experience with their mobile devices. As such, new systems, methods, and devices may be desired to leverage the capabilities of mobile devices in providing navigation to users in an improved and efficient manner.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In light of the foregoing background, the following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

“Aspects of the disclosure address one or more of the issues mentioned above by describing computerized methods, systems, devices, and apparatuses for a multi-stop route selection system that integrates calendar information, telematics information, driving behaviors, driving risks, and/or preferences to provide drivers with customized and intuitive navigation. For example, the system may analyze a user’s calendar, habits, driving behaviors, and the like to determine appointments and appropriate stops for the user while driving. The user may interface with the route selection system by utilizing a route selection mobile application on the user’s mobile device. In another example, the route selection system may analyze the risk of various routes to select and optimize a route for a driver based on safety and efficiency. In some embodiments, the route selection system may communicate with application program interfaces, data analytics platforms, and/or third-party platforms that provide one or more of weather information, traffic information, road safety information, risk information, or the like.

“The disclosure describes a system comprising a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors arranged therein, a mobile device associated with a driver of the vehicle, and a server computer comprising hardware including a processor and memory. The server computer may be configured to receive, from the one or more sensors and via the telematics device, driving data of a driver of the vehicle and a vehicle location, determine one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, receive, from the mobile device, data regarding a calendar of the driver, identify a plurality of appointments in the calendar of the driver, determine a route comprising multiple destinations for the driver based on the vehicle location, the one or more driving behaviors of the driver, and the plurality of appointments in the calendar of the driver, transmit the route for the driver to the mobile device, receive, from the mobile device, a request to add a new destination to the route for the driver, modify the route to include the new destination, resulting in a modified route comprising the new destination, and transmit the modified route for the driver to the mobile device.

“The disclosure also describes an apparatus comprising at least one processor, a network interface configured to communicate, via a network, with a telematics device and a first computing device, and a memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to receive, from the telematics device, driving data of a driver of a vehicle and a vehicle location, determine one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, receive, from the first computing device, data regarding a calendar of the driver, identify a plurality of appointments in the calendar of the driver, determine a route comprising multiple destinations for the driver based on the vehicle location, the one or more driving behaviors of the driver, and the plurality of appointments in the calendar of the driver, transmit the route for the driver to the first computing device, receive, from the first computing device, a request to add a new destination to the route for the driver, modify the route to include the new destination, resulting in a modified route comprising the new destination, and transmit the modified route for the driver to the first computing device.

“In addition, aspects of this disclosure provide a method that includes receiving, from a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors arranged therein, driving data of a driver of the vehicle and a vehicle location, determining, by one or more computing devices, one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, receiving, from a mobile device associated with the driver of the vehicle, data regarding a calendar of the driver, identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a plurality of appointments in the calendar of the driver, determining, by the one or more computing devices, a route comprising multiple destinations for the driver based on the vehicle location, the one or more driving behaviors of the driver, and the plurality of appointments in the calendar of the driver, transmitting, by the one or more computing devices, the route for the driver to the mobile device, receiving, from the mobile device, a request to add a new destination to the route for the driver, modifying, by the one or more computing devices, the route to include the new destination, resulting in a modified route comprising the new destination, and transmitting, by the one or more computing devices, the modified route for the driver to the mobile device.

“Of course, the methods and systems of the above-referenced embodiments may also include other additional elements, steps, computer-executable instructions or computer-readable data structures. In this regard, other embodiments are disclosed and claimed herein as well. The details of these and other embodiments of the present invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description, drawings, and claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed is:

“1. A system comprising: a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors arranged therein; a mobile device associated with a driver of the vehicle; and a server computer, comprising hardware including a processor and memory, the server computer configured to: receive, from the one or more sensors and via the telematics device, driving data of a driver of the vehicle and a vehicle location; determine one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, the one or more driving behaviors including vehicle operation data of the driver other than vehicle location information; identify a plurality of appointments in a schedule of the driver; determine a route comprising multiple destinations for the driver based on the vehicle location, the one or more driving behaviors of the driver, a route risk score, and the plurality of appointments in the schedule of the driver, wherein the route risk score indicates a likelihood of an accident occurring on a specified route based on historical accident data associated with that specified route; receive, from the mobile device, a request to add a new destination to the route for the driver; and modify the route to include the new destination, resulting in a modified route comprising the new destination, wherein modifying the route includes: identifying priority levels of the multiple destinations in the route; and generating the modified route comprising navigation to the new destination prior to navigation to the multiple destinations.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server computer is further configured to: identify a location and time for each appointment of the driver by parsing the data regarding the schedule of the driver; analyze a driving history of the driver to determine an average length of time it takes the driver to reach the location for each appointment in the schedule of the driver; and determine the route comprising the multiple destinations further based on the time for each appointment and the average length of time it takes the driver to reach the location for each appointment.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein each destination in the route for the driver corresponds to the location for each respective appointment in the plurality of appointments in the schedule of the driver.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein determining the route comprising the multiple destinations is further based on at least one of traffic, and weather.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the request to add the new destination to the route for the driver is based on an invitation added to the schedule of the driver after the route is transmitted to the mobile device.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein modifying the route further includes: transmitting the modified route to the driver.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more sensors comprise at least one of an accelerometer, speedometer, gyroscope, and GPS, wherein the driving data comprises real-time data that is collected by the one or more sensors while the driver is driving, and wherein the real-time data comprises at least one of a driving speed, an acceleration measurement, a braking measurement, and a steering measurement.

“8. An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a network interface configured to communicate, via a network, with a telematics device and a first computing device; and a memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to: receive, via the telematics device, driving data of a driver of a vehicle and a vehicle location; determine one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, the one or more driving behaviors including vehicle operation data of the driver other than vehicle location information; identify a plurality of appointments in a schedule of the driver; determine a route comprising multiple destinations for the driver based on the vehicle location, the one or more driving behaviors of the driver, a route risk score, and the plurality of appointments in the schedule of the driver, wherein the route risk score indicates a likelihood of an accident occurring on a specified route based on historical accident data associated with that specified route; receive a request to add a new destination to the route for the driver; and modify the route to include the new destination, resulting in a modified route comprising the new destination, wherein modifying the route includes: identifying priority levels of the multiple destinations in the route; and generating the modified route comprising navigation to the new destination prior to navigation to the multiple destinations.

“9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the apparatus to: identify a location and time for each appointment of the driver by parsing the data regarding the schedule of the driver; analyze a driving history of the driver to determine an average length of time it takes the driver to reach the location for each appointment in the schedule of the driver; and determine the route comprising the multiple destinations further based on the time for each appointment and the average length of time it takes the driver to reach the location for each appointment.

“10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein each destination in the route for the driver corresponds to the location for each respective appointment in the plurality of appointments in the schedule of the driver.

“11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein determining the route comprising the multiple destinations is further based on at least one traffic, and weather.

“12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the request to add the new destination to the route for the driver is based on an invitation added to the schedule of the driver after the route is transmitted to the first computing device.

“13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein modifying the route further includes: transmitting the modified route to the driver.

“14. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the driving data is obtained by one or more sensors, the one or more sensors comprising at least one of an accelerometer, speedometer, gyroscope, and GPS, wherein the driving data comprises real-time data that is collected by the one or more sensors while the driver is driving, and wherein the real-time data comprises at least one of a driving speed, an acceleration measurement, a braking measurement, and a steering measurement.

“15. A method comprising: receiving, via a telematics device, driving data of a driver of a vehicle and a vehicle location; determining one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data the one or more driving behaviors including vehicle operation data of the driver other than vehicle location information; identifying a plurality of appointments in a schedule of the driver; determining a route comprising multiple destinations for the driver based on the vehicle location, the one or more driving behaviors of the driver, a route risk score, and the plurality of appointments in the schedule of the driver, wherein the route risk score indicates a likelihood of an accident occurring on a specified route based on historical accident data associated with that specified route; receiving a request to add a new destination to the route for the driver; and modifying the route to include the new destination, resulting in a modified route comprising the new destination, wherein modifying the route includes: identifying priority levels of the multiple destinations in the route; and generating the modified route comprising navigation to the new destination prior to navigation to the multiple destinations.

“16. The method of claim 15, further comprising: identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a location and time for each appointment of the driver by parsing the data regarding the schedule of the driver; analyzing, by the one or more computing devices, a driving history of the driver to determine an average length of time it takes the driver to reach the location for each appointment in the schedule of the driver; and determining, by the one or more computing devices, the route comprising the multiple destinations further based on the time for each appointment and the average length of time it takes the driver to reach the location for each appointment.

“17. The method of claim 16, wherein each destination in the route for the driver corresponds to the location for each respective appointment in the plurality of appointments in the schedule of the driver.

“18. The method of claim 15, wherein determining the route comprising the multiple destinations is further based on at least one of traffic, and weather.

“19. The method of claim 15, wherein the request to add the new destination to the route for the driver is based on an invitation added to the schedule of the driver after the route is transmitted to a mobile device associated with the driver.

“20. The method of claim 15, wherein modifying the route further includes transmitting the modified route to the driver.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Schreier, Elizabeth; Grahn, Jamie Elizabeth. Multi-Stop Route Selection System. U.S. Patent Number 10,775,181, filed June 11, 2018, and published online on September 28, 2020. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=10,775,181.PN.&OS=PN/10,775,181RS=PN/10,775,181

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