Patent Issued for Vehicle fleet exchange method and system (USPTO 11562301): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2023 FEB 10 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11562301, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Brannan, Joseph Robert (Bloomington, IL, US), Gross, Ryan (Normal, IL, US).

This patent was filed on February 6, 2019 and was published online on January 24, 2023.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.

“A company may have a fleet including two or more owned or leased company vehicles (equivalently, “automobiles,” or “autos”), wherein the vehicles include any number of passenger vehicles, trucks, vans and/or other vehicles (e.g., motorcycles, buses, etc.). The vehicles may include autonomous and/or semi-autonomous features. Increasingly, telematics data related to the operation of motor vehicles of all types is captured by telematics systems that are built into vehicles, or which are carried into vehicles by drivers and passengers (e.g., mobile computing devices). Such telematics systems measure and capture data directly from vehicle computer systems as well as indirectly from the vehicle environment. In general, the company may loan, sell and/or lease the company vehicles to the company’s workers (e.g., employees, contractors, etc.) for use in the performance of the company’s business. For example, a sales company may provide vehicles for salespeople to use for sales calls during business hours and for personal use during non-business hours. In another example, a utility company may provide work trucks that are signed out by utility workers during the work day and returned to a vehicle depot at the conclusion of the day’s business.

“However, the company faces several problems with respect to the fleet of company vehicles. First, conventional techniques of providing company vehicles to workers are inefficient because providing each worker with a vehicle to use may require the company to purchase or lease as many vehicles as the company has employees. Second, whenever a company vehicle is not being driven by a worker, the vehicle is an idle resource that is not being used to the fullest extent. Third, providing a worker with a vehicle that the worker will only use when the worker is working is expensive.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect, a computer-implemented method of facilitating a fleet exchange includes retrieving a fleet including one or more autos via one or more processors, retrieving a set of workers each including a respective work calendar, a respective first location, and a respective second location. The method may further include analyzing the fleet and the set of workers using a fleet calendar module to generate a set of one or more auto allocations wherein each auto allocation in the set of auto allocations corresponds to a respective worker in the set of workers, and displaying, in a respective computing device of each worker in the set of workers, the auto allocation corresponding to the worker.

“In another aspect, a non-transitory computer readable medium includes program instructions that when executed, cause a computer system to receive an input of a user the input including a request for a vehicle allocation via an input device, retrieve a worker information data set and a worker calendar via one or more processors, generate an auto allocation with respect to the user based on the worker information data set and the worker calendar, and display the auto allocation with respect to the user in a display device of a computer system.

“In yet another aspect, a computing system for facilitating fleet exchange includes one or more processors and a memory including computer executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to retrieve a fleet including one or more autos via one or more processors, retrieve a set of workers each including a respective work calendar, a respective first location, and a respective second location, via one or more processors. The memory may include further instructions that, when executed, cause the computing system to analyze the fleet and the set of workers using a fleet calendar module to generate a set of one or more auto allocations wherein each auto allocation in the set of auto allocations corresponds to a respective worker in the set of workers, and display the auto allocation corresponding to the worker in a respective computing device of each worker in the set of workers.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer implemented method of facilitating a fleet exchange server to overcome scheduling problems created in a hybrid-use scenario wherein vehicles are used by workers of a company and customers of the company, the method comprising: receiving, by one or more processors of the server via an electronic network, a plurality of telematics data sets; wherein each of the plurality of telematics data sets corresponds to a respective vehicle in a fleet data set including a plurality of vehicles; wherein each telematics data set is generated by a respective mobile computing device configured as a wireless telematics system that receives respective vehicle sensor information in their respective vehicle communication protocols; converting, by the one or more processors, each of the telematics data sets’ respective communication protocols into a respective standardized telematics data set; updating, by the one or more processors, each vehicle in the fleet data set to include the respective standardized telematics data set; retrieving, by the one or more processors, the fleet data set; retrieving, by the one or more processors, a set of workers each including a respective work calendar, a respective first location, and a respective second location; analyzing, by the one or more processors, the fleet data set and the set of workers to generate a vehicle allocation, of at least one vehicle that is not in use by any of the workers, for one of the customers of the company; and causing, by the one or more processors, display of the vehicle allocation on a computing device of the one of the customers of the company.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving the fleet data set includes retrieving vehicles that are currently available for allocation based on the vehicles’ respective real-time location.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving the set of workers each including the respective work calendar, the respective first location, and the respective second location includes selecting the set of workers based on the shift of each respective worker in the set of workers.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving the set of workers each including the respective work calendar, the respective first location, and the respective second location includes selecting the set of workers based on the geographic proximity of the respective first location of each of the workers in the set of workers.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the fleet data set and the set of workers includes generating a vehicle allocation for two workers on different shifts.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the fleet data set and the set of workers includes analyzing the job function of each worker in the set of workers.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the fleet data set and the set of workers includes generating a vehicle allocation for a worker and the one of the customers.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the fleet data set and the set of workers includes using a smart scheduling algorithm to determine an optimal vehicle allocation, wherein the smart scheduling algorithm includes identifying one or both of (i) a location of each respective worker and (ii) a set of date and time needs of each respective worker.

“9. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing program instructions for facilitating a computer system to overcome scheduling problems created in a hybrid-use scenario wherein vehicles are used by workers of a company and customers of the company, that when executed by one or more processors of the computer system, cause the computer system to: retrieve a fleet data set including a worker information data set, a worker calendar, and a plurality of vehicles, each of the plurality of vehicles including a respective telematics data set generated by a mobile computing device configured as a wireless telematics system that receives vehicle sensor information in a vehicle communication protocol; convert each of the telematics data sets’ respective communication protocols into a respective corresponding standardized telematics data set; generate, based on i) the worker information data set and the worker calendar, and ii) the respective standardized telematics data set, a vehicle allocation, of at least one vehicle that is not in use by any of the workers, for one of the customers of the company; and cause display, in a display device of the one of the customers of the company, the vehicle allocation.

“10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9 containing further program instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to: receive an input of a user, via an input device, the input including a request for the vehicle allocation; wherein the user is (i) one of the workers or (ii) the one of the customers.

“11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9 containing further program instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to: receive input from the input device, the input including an indication of one or more vehicles in a fleet; create, in an electronic database, one or more vehicle records corresponding to the input; and display, in an output device of the computing system, an application including a listing of the one or more vehicle records.

“12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein the program instructions are implemented as a virtual machine instance.

“13. A computing system for facilitating fleet exchange to overcome scheduling problems created in a hybrid-use scenario wherein vehicles are used by workers of a company and customers of the company, the computing system comprising: one or more processors, an electronic network; and a memory including computer executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: retrieve a fleet data set including a plurality of vehicles, each vehicle including a respective corresponding telematics data set generated by a mobile computing device configured as a wireless telematics system that receives vehicle sensor information in a vehicle communication protocol; convert each of the telematics data sets’ respective communication protocols into a respective corresponding standardized telematics data set; retrieve a set of workers each including a respective work calendar, a respective first location, and a respective second location; analyze the set of workers and the respective standardized telematics data set to generate a vehicle allocation, of at least one vehicle that is not in use by any of the workers, for one of the customers of the company; and cause a computing device of the one of the customers of the company to display the vehicle allocation.

“14. The computing system of claim 13 including further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: retrieve vehicles that are currently available for allocation based on the vehicles’ respective real-time location.

“15. The computing system of claim 13 including further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: select the set of workers based on the shift of each respective worker in the set of workers.

“16. The computing system of claim 13 including further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: select the set of workers based on the geographic proximity of the respective first location of each of the workers in the set of workers.

“17. The computing system of claim 13 including further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: generate a vehicle allocation for two workers on different shifts.

“18. The computing system of claim 13 including further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: analyze the job function of each worker in the set of workers.

“19. The computing system of claim 13 including further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: generate a vehicle allocation for a worker and the one of the customers.

“20. The computing system of claim 13 including further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to: use a smart scheduling algorithm to determine an optimal vehicle allocation by identifying one or both of (i) a location of each respective worker, and (ii) a set of date and time needs of each respective worker.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Brannan, Joseph Robert. Vehicle fleet exchange method and system. U.S. Patent Number 11562301, filed February 6, 2019, and published online on January 24, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11562301)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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