Method and system for detecting duplicate travel path information

Abstract

Methods and systems for detecting a likelihood that a travel path is a correct travel path of a user using possible duplicate travel path information. A set of travel paths comprising at least two travel paths is obtained. Any paths that break up more than one reservation are removed. Each travel path is broken into at least one leg. Each leg in each travel path is compared to each leg in every other travel path to determine whether any travel paths are duplicates. A likelihood that each of the at least two travel paths is the correct travel path is determined using information about whether any of the at least two travel paths are duplicates.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for detecting a likelihood that a travel path is a correct travel path of a user, comprising:
 obtaining a set of travel paths comprising at least two travel paths from a travel path database in communication with at least one processor;   at the at least one processor, breaking each travel path into at least one leg;   at the at least one processor, comparing each leg in each travel path to each leg in every other travel path in the set of travel paths to determine whether any travel paths are possible duplicates, wherein determining whether any travel paths are possible duplicates further comprises constructing at least one similar leg graph where nodes of the leg graph represent origins and destinations of legs; and   at the at least one processor, determining a likelihood that each of the at least two travel paths is the correct travel path using information about whether any of the at least two travel paths are possible duplicates.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 at the at least one processor, allowing the user to select the correct travel path from a list of candidate travel paths that are possible duplicates.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the possible duplicates are sorted according to which travel path information was imported into the system most recently. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the at least two travel paths compare: air travel, car travel, rail travel, or bus travel, or any combination thereof. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining whether any legs are similar to any other legs by determining whether any segments in any legs contain at least one similar point and/or at least one similar end point.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 at the at least one processor, excluding any travel path that incorporates more than zero but fewer than all possible segments from more than one reservation.