Patent Issued for Role assignment for enhanced roadside assistance (USPTO 11216824): Allstate Insurance Company
2022 JAN 21 (NewsRx) -- By a
The patent’s assignee for patent number 11216824 is
News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “A driver may experience a variety of unexpected roadside incidents that may leave him or her stranded in a vehicle on a side of a road. For instance, a driver may be involved in a car accident and may need a tow truck for his or her damaged vehicle. In another instance, a driver may need a jump start or gas delivery for his or her stalled vehicle. For roadside incidents such as these, insurance companies may offer roadside assistance services for drivers.
“Conventional roadside assistance services may include notifying an insurance agent or a service provider of a driver involved in a roadside incident. The insurance agent or the service provider may receive details of the roadside incident, verify that the driver is insured, and determine if the driver’s vehicle is registered with a roadside assistance account. In some cases, the driver’s vehicle may be registered with a roadside assistance account, but the driver might not be the account holder of the roadside assistance account. For example, the driver may be a teenager who drives a parent’s vehicle, in which the parent is the account holder of the roadside assistance account. The teenager may be associated with the roadside assistance account, but he or she might not be able to make decisions regarding repair of the vehicle.
“Conventional roadside assistance services do not account for such situations in which a driver in a stranded vehicle on a side of a road is not an account holder of the roadside assistance account. Accordingly, there may be a need for improved approaches to roadside assistance that support multiple individuals that are associated with a vehicle.”
As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents 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 disclosing computerized methods, systems, devices, and apparatuses for providing a roadside assistance system to assign service provider roles and allow communication of status updates and service requests between individuals and service providers. The disclosure describes a system comprising a roadside assistance device associated with an individual associated with a vehicle that is registered in a roadside assistance account, a plurality of computing devices individually associated with one of a plurality of service providers that offer at least one type of service, and a roadside assistance system. The roadside assistance system may be configured to modify a service provider role assignment associated with the roadside assistance account by assigning a service provider role to each of the plurality of service providers, receive, from the roadside assistance device, a service request for the individual after a roadside incident with the vehicle, identify one or more of the service providers offering a type of service indicated by the service request, based on the service provider role assignment, transmit a notification of the service request to at least one of the plurality of computing devices associated with one of the service providers, receive, from at least one of the plurality of computing devices, a response associated with one of the service providers, wherein the response comprises one or more discounts for the type of service offered by the service provider, and transmit the response to the roadside assistance device for presentation to the individual.
“The disclosure also describes an apparatus comprising at least one processor, a network interface configured to communicate, via a network, with a roadside assistance device, and memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to modify a service provider role assignment associated with a roadside assistance account by assigning a service provider role to each of one or more service providers that offer at least one type of service, receive, from the roadside assistance device, a service request for an individual associated with a vehicle after a roadside incident, wherein the vehicle is registered in the roadside assistance account, transmit a request notification of the service request to at least one of the service providers based on the service provider role assignment, receive a response from at least one of the service providers, wherein the response comprises one or more discounts for the type of service offered by the service provider, and transmit, to the roadside assistance device, the response for presentation to the individual.
“In addition, aspects of this disclosure provide a method that includes modifying, by a computing device, a service provider role assignment associated with a roadside assistance account by assigning a service provider role to each of one or more service providers offering at least one type of service, receiving, by the computing device from a roadside assistance device, a service request for an individual associated with a vehicle after a roadside incident, wherein the vehicle is registered in the roadside assistance account, transmitting, by the computing device, a request notification of the service request to at least one of the one or more service providers based on the service provider role assignment, receiving, by the computing device, a response from at least one of the service providers, wherein the response comprises one or more discounts for the type of service offered by the service provider, and transmitting, by the computing device, the response to the roadside assistance device for presentation to the individual.
“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:
“1. A method comprising: modifying, by a computing device, a service provider role assignment associated with a roadside assistance account by assigning a service provider role to each of one or more service providers offering at least one type of service; receiving, by the computing device from a sensor on a first roadside assistance device, data associated with driving behavior of a first individual as a driver of a vehicle; receiving, by the computing device from a roadside assistance application running on the first roadside assistance device associated with the first individual, a service request for the first individual associated with the vehicle after a roadside incident, wherein the vehicle is registered in the roadside assistance account, and a driver role assignment is determined for the first individual based on the data associated with the driving behavior of the first individual comprising GPS coordinates of the first roadside assistance device; determining, by the computing device and based on the data associated with the driving behavior of the first individual comprising the GPS coordinates of the first roadside assistance device, that the first individual has a non-administrative driver role associated with the vehicle; transmitting, by the computing device, the request notification of the service request and the data to a second roadside assistance device for presentation to a second individual via the roadside assistance application, wherein the second individual has an administrative driver role associated with the vehicle; transmitting, by the computing device, a request notification of the service request and the data to at least one of the one or more service providers based on the service provider role assignment and the driver role assignment; receiving, by the computing device, a response from at least one of the service providers, wherein the response comprises one or more discounts for the type of service offered by the service provider; transmitting, by the computing device, the response to the second roadside assistance device for presentation to the second individual via the roadside assistance application; receiving, by the computing device from the second individual, a designation of a service provider selected from the at least one of the service providers; transmitting, by the computing device, a confirmation to the designated service provider that the designated service provider has been selected; receiving, by the computing device, an acceptance of the service request from the designated service provider; and causing, by the computing device, the roadside assistance application to open a chat session between the second roadside assistance device, the first roadside assistance device, and a device associated with the designated service provider.
“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the computing device from the first roadside assistance device, a location of the first individual; obtaining, by the computing device, contact information of the first individual; and transmitting, by the computing device to the designated service provider, a notification of the designation, the location of the first individual, and the contact information of the first individual.
“3. The method of claim 2, wherein the designated service provider is selected by the second individual based on a bid with a proposed price for the type of service indicated by the service request and details of the type of service offered by the designated service provider.
“4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the computing device, a first response from a first service provider for accepting the service request for the first individual; transmitting, by the computing device, a first notification to the first service provider and the second roadside assistance device that the service request has been accepted by the first service provider; receiving, by the computing device, a second response from a second service provider for accepting the service request for the first individual; and transmitting, by the computing device, a second notification to the second service provider that the service request has already been accepted by the first service provider.
“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the response from at least one of the service providers comprises a bid with a proposed price for the type of service indicated by the service request and details of the type of service offered by the one or more service providers.
“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the response from the at least one of the service providers further comprises additional discounts for other types of services offered by the one or more service providers.
“7. The method of claim 6, wherein the additional discounts for the other types of services offered by the one or more service providers are based on a record of previous services provided to the first individual.
“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the type of service comprises one of repair services, transportation services, lodging services, medical services, and food services.
“9. The method of claim 1, wherein the service provider role allows the one or more service providers to access details of the roadside incident and communicate with the first individual.
“10. A system comprising: a first roadside assistance device associated with a first individual associated with a vehicle that is registered in a roadside assistance account, the first roadside assistance device storing a roadside assistance application and the first roadside assistance device comprising a sensor that collects data associated with driving behavior of a first individual as a driver of the vehicle; a plurality of computing devices individually associated with one of a plurality of service providers that offer at least one type of service; and a computer-implemented roadside assistance system configured to: modify a service provider role assignment associated with the roadside assistance account by assigning a service provider role to each of the plurality of service providers; receive, from the sensor, the data associated with the driving behavior of the first individual comprising GPS coordinates of the first roadside assistance device; determine a driver role of the first individual associated with the vehicle, based on the data associated with the driving behavior of the first individual comprising the GPS coordinates of the first roadside assistance device; receive, from the roadside assistance application running on the first roadside assistance device, a service request for the first individual after a roadside incident with the vehicle; identify one or more of the service providers offering a type of service indicated by the service request; based on the service provider role assignment and driver role determination, transmit a notification of the service request and the data to at least one of the plurality of computing devices associated with the one or more of the service providers; receive, from at least one of the plurality of computing devices, a response associated with the one or more of the service providers, wherein the response comprises one or more discounts for the type of service offered by the one or more of the service providers; responsive to determining that the first individual has a non-administrative driver role: transmit the response to a second roadside assistance device for presentation to a second individual with an administrative driver role via the roadside assistance application; receive, from the second individual with the administrative driver role associated with the vehicle, a designation of a service provider from the one or more of the service providers via the roadside assistance application; transmit, to a computing device associated with the designated service provider, a confirmation that the designated service provider has been selected; receive, by the computer-implemented roadside assistance system, an acceptance of the service request from the designated service provider; and cause the roadside assistance application to open a chat session between the second roadside assistance device, the first roadside assistance device, and a computing device, of the plurality of computing devices, associated with the designated service provider.
“11. The system of claim 10, wherein the response associated with the one or more of the service providers comprises a bid with a proposed price for the type of service indicated by the service request and details of the type of service offered by the one or more of the service providers.
“12. The system of claim 10, wherein the response associated with one or more of the service providers further comprises additional discounts for other types of services offered by the one or more of the service providers.
“13. The system of claim 12, wherein the additional discounts for other types of services offered by the one or more of the service providers are based on a record of previous services provided to the first individual.
“14. The system of claim 10, wherein the type of service comprises one of repair services, transportation services, lodging services, medical services, and food services.”
There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.
For additional information on this patent, see: Briggs, Ryan M. Role assignment for enhanced roadside assistance.
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