Route Graph Pre-Selection for Public Transit Itinerary Generation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for interconnecting content requesting clients with multiple content provider platforms are inefficient in generating and selecting optimal public transportation itineraries, as they fail to effectively aggregate data and reduce the number of queries to content providers, leading to increased processing power and data transfer requirements.
Innovation Solution
A distributed computer system that generates transport-service graphs and connection graphs to select routes and query content providers for price and availability, aggregating responses to build itineraries efficiently, reducing the number of queries and processing power by pre-selecting relevant routes and using path-optimization algorithms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If existing systems query all content provider platforms for itinerary information, then complete itinerary options are provided to clients, but the number of queries and data transfer volume increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-generating transport-service graphs and connection graphs that represent all possible routes between stops in public transportation networks. These graphs are created before receiving client requests, organizing route data in advance so that when a client requests itineraries, the system only needs to query content providers for the specific routes that match the client's origin and destination, rather than querying all possible routes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the comprehensive route information into structured graph components (transport-service graphs for individual operators and connection graphs for multiple operators). By dividing the route data into manageable graph segments with nodes representing stops and edges representing connections, the system can efficiently select and query only the relevant segments needed for specific client requests.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the system generates and processes all possible routes between all stops, then complete route coverage is achieved, but computational power and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary graph generation operations to pre-compute and store transport-service graphs and connection graphs that capture all possible routes. This preliminary computation organizes the comprehensive route data into efficient graph structures before actual client requests arrive, reducing the computational burden during request processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces graph structures (transport-service graphs and connection graphs) as intermediary representations between the raw route data from content providers and the final itinerary responses to clients. These graphs serve as mediators that pre-organize route information, allowing the system to efficiently query and process only relevant routes without manually processing all possible route combinations for each client request.
3Measurement precision
If the system queries content provider platforms for every segment of every possible route, then accurate pricing and availability information is obtained, but the number of queries to content providers increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-selecting relevant routes using the generated graphs and client request parameters (origin, destination, departure/arrival times). By determining which routes are relevant before querying content providers, the system minimizes the number of queries needed while ensuring accurate pricing and availability information is obtained for the correct routes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies local quality by querying content providers with specific, localized parameters for each relevant route segment (departure time, arrival time, origin stop, destination stop) rather than making generic queries. This targeted approach ensures accurate pricing and availability information is obtained for each specific segment while minimizing the total number of queries.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of handling a client's request for origin/destination and/or departure/arrival time is provided. Data is gathered from content-provider platforms and transport-service graphs, corresponding to public-transportation networks, are generated with their nodes representing stops in a corresponding public-transportation network and their internal edges representing connections. A connection graph including the transport-service graphs is generated. Origin/destination nodes are selected in the connection graph as well as routes between these nodes. Therein, successive segments for a route, corresponding to transportation connections between nodes of a transport-service graph are joined. Queries asking price, availability, departure/arrival time based on departure/arrival time of the request and estimated travel duration of a selected route's segment are sent to content-provider platforms. Responses to the queries are aggregated to build a set of itineraries and sending an offer comprising this set to the client.