Vehicle Reservation Priority Reassignment for Car Sharing Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current car sharing services lack the ability to effectively prioritize and manage vehicle reservations based on user importance levels, leading to inefficiencies in vehicle allocation.
Innovation Solution
A server and terminal apparatus system that determines the importance level of reservation requests, compares it with existing reservations, and assigns vehicles from lower-priority reservations when no vehicles are available, ensuring that high-priority users are allocated vehicles even when all vehicles are reserved.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If vehicles are assigned to reservations in first-come-first-served order, then vehicle allocation is simple and fast, but high-priority users cannot access vehicles when all vehicles are reserved
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the allocation parameter from simple chronological order to importance-based priority levels. Reservation requests are assigned importance levels (e.g., high, medium, low) and vehicles are allocated based on these levels rather than arrival time, ensuring high-priority users can access vehicles even when fully reserved.
Solution Approach 2:
The vehicle allocation system becomes dynamic by allowing reassignment based on changing priority needs. When a high-priority user requests a vehicle, the system can dynamically transfer vehicles from lower-priority reservations, making the allocation flexible rather than static.
2Reliability
If vehicles are reassigned from lower-priority reservations to high-priority users, then high-priority user access is improved, but reservation management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The reservation management system is segmented into distinct priority levels (high, medium, low). This segmentation allows the system to manage allocations hierarchically, where each priority level is handled separately, simplifying the overall management despite the added complexity of priority-based allocation.
Solution Approach 2:
The server acts as an intermediary that manages the complex priority-based allocation logic. It receives reservation requests, determines importance levels, and automatically performs vehicle reassignment without requiring direct user intervention, thereby managing complexity centrally rather than distributed across multiple components.
3Productivity
If all vehicles are reserved for lower-priority users, then lower-priority reservations are fulfilled, but high-priority users experience waiting time and reduced service quality
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary assessment of reservation importance levels before finalizing vehicle assignments. By evaluating and prioritizing requests in advance, the system can proactively allocate vehicles to high-priority users before they experience waiting, rather than reacting after delays occur.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where reservation importance levels are continuously evaluated and vehicle allocations are adjusted accordingly. When high-priority users request vehicles, the system provides feedback by reassigning vehicles from lower-priority reservations, reducing waiting time while maintaining overall vehicle utilization.
Data Source
AI summary
A server includes a communication interface and a controller. The controller receives a reservation request for a vehicle from a first user via the communication interface, determines an importance level of the reservation request, and generates first reservation information for a vehicle to be used by the first user, the first reservation information including the importance level. In a case in which there is no vehicle to assign to the first reservation information, the controller compares the importance level of the reservation request with importance levels of other reservation information that already exists, and assigns, to the first reservation information, a vehicle that has been assigned to second reservation information which is from among the other reservation information and includes an importance level lower than the importance level of the reservation request.