Autonomous Fleet Dispatch for Coordinated Group Ride Allocation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for coordinating rides for large groups of people are inefficient, often resulting in inadequate vehicle capacity, staggered arrivals, and confusion at destinations, with individually requested cars leading to wastefulness and increased costs.
Innovation Solution
A fleet management system that coordinates multiple autonomous vehicles (AVs) to transport groups by determining the necessary number of AVs based on passenger count, ensuring all passengers are accounted for, and dropping them off at the same or nearby locations, using a user interface to enhance group cohesion and manage ride requests.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If multiple people individually request cars for a large group, then each person can secure a ride, but the group disperses into separate cars leading to inadequate seat capacity coordination, staggered arrivals, and confusion at destinations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual ride requests into a single coordinated group request. The system identifies when multiple users are requesting rides to the same or nearby destinations and combines these requests into one coordinated dispatch, ensuring adequate seat capacity and synchronized arrivals while reducing overall coordination complexity.
2Reliability
If a large group requests a bus or limousine service, then all passengers can be transported together, but such services are expensive and often not readily available on-demand
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the large group into multiple smaller sub-groups, each assigned to a separate autonomous vehicle. This segmentation allows the system to use more cost-effective individual vehicle dispatches rather than requiring expensive bus or limousine services, while still maintaining group cohesion through coordinated routing and synchronized arrivals.
3Productivity
If multiple individually-requested cars are dispatched, then each car can arrive with its passengers, but the cars may not arrive at the same drop-off point causing confusion and delays
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where the centralized server continuously monitors the locations and statuses of all autonomous vehicles in the coordinated group. Based on this feedback, the server adjusts routing instructions to ensure all vehicles arrive at the same or nearby drop-off points at coordinated times, preventing confusion and delays while maintaining transport efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
A fleet management system coordinates multiple autonomous vehicles (AVs) to transport a group of passengers from one location to another. A single user can submit a request to the fleet management system to provide a ride for the group, the request specifying the number of passengers and the pickup location. The fleet management system determines a number of AVs to transport the group based on the number passengers, and dispatches this number of AVs to the pickup location. The AVs pick up the passengers at the pickup location, drive the passengers to a destination, and drop the passengers off at the destination.