Drag and Drop Map for Pickup Location Selection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional transportation services face inefficiencies due to drivers traveling uncompensated distances between drop-off and pick-up locations, leading to increased costs, wait times, and user frustration, as users often manually select locations without optimal routing.
Innovation Solution
A system that allows users to select pickup and drop-off locations along a predetermined route, enabling transportation vehicles to travel back and forth along established segments, reducing unnecessary distances and wait times through a communication session between server and client devices, with features like map dragging and snapping to nearest route segments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If users manually select pickup and drop-off locations by moving a selection icon on a line, then location selection is possible, but the process is inconvenient and leads to suboptimal routing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical interaction of dragging and dropping an icon along a line with an automated system that detects the user's intended location and automatically selects the nearest route segment. This substitution eliminates the cumbersome manual operation while maintaining user control, thereby improving both ease of operation and dispatching efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service by automatically snapping the selection icon to the nearest route segment based on the user's drag gesture, without requiring the user to precisely position the icon manually. This self-adjusting mechanism simplifies the user interface interaction while ensuring optimal route selection, resolving the contradiction between operational convenience and dispatching efficiency.
2Adaptability or versatility
If drivers travel between drop-off and pick-up locations without predetermined routing, then flexibility in location selection is maintained, but unnecessary distances are traveled increasing costs and wait times
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the continuous route into discrete segments and requires pickup and drop-off locations to be selected from these segments. This segmentation constrains locations to predetermined points along the route, eliminating unnecessary travel between segments while maintaining flexibility within the segmented framework. The result is reduced travel time and improved efficiency without completely sacrificing location selection flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary action by pre-establishing predetermined routes with defined segments before users make their selections. This advance planning allows the system to optimize the route in advance, ensuring that drivers follow efficient paths between pickup and drop-off points, thereby reducing wait times and unnecessary travel while still allowing users to choose from available segment locations.
3Ease of operation
If selection icon is not snapped to route segments during manual dragging, then user can indicate approximate location, but optimal routing cannot be ensured
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the imprecise manual positioning of the selection icon with an automated snapping mechanism that detects the user's drag gesture and automatically snaps the icon to the nearest route segment. This substitution maintains the simplicity of the user interaction (drag anywhere along the route) while ensuring precise alignment with optimal route segments, thereby resolving the contradiction between operational simplicity and location selection accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring the position of the dragged selection icon and providing real-time snapping to the nearest route segment. This feedback mechanism ensures that even though the user can drag the icon to any approximate location for ease of operation, the system automatically corrects the position to achieve precise alignment with the optimal route segment, thus maintaining both simplicity and accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for dragging and dropping a map for marking pickup and drop off locations on a predetermined route are disclosed. A method includes receiving a first user selection of a predetermined route that includes a plurality of segments corresponding to geographical locations along the predetermined route. The method further includes transmitting data to cause a map including at least a portion of the predetermined route to be rendered for display. The method further includes receiving a second user selection of a pickup location on the map corresponding to a first segment, a third user selection of a drop off location on the map corresponding to a second segment, and a transportation vehicle request corresponding to the pickup location and the drop off location. The method further includes transmitting the transportation vehicle request, the pickup location, and the drop off location to a communication device of a transportation vehicle.