Systems and Methods for Managing Networked Vehicle Resources

Abstract

A method and apparatus for managing a networked vehicle resource sharing facility, the method and system provide defining a geographical area as a work region; storing, in a data structure, data relating to vehicle hire bookings beginning inside the work region, wherein the booking information for each booking includes a default delay time; applying a rule to determine that an additional delay condition or fully booked condition is satisfied within the work region; and in response to positively determining, automatically introducing an additional delay or a fully booked setting, respectively, to at least some of the vehicle hire bookings inside the work region.

1 . A computer-implemented method of managing a plurality of networked vehicle resources, the method comprising:
 defining a geographical area as a work region;   storing, in a data structure, data relating to vehicle hire bookings beginning inside the work region, wherein the booking information for each booking includes a default delay time;   applying a rule to determine that an additional delay condition or fully booked condition is satisfied within the work region; and   in response to positively determining, automatically introducing an additional delay or a fully booked setting, respectively, to at least some of the vehicle hire bookings inside the work region.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 comparing the number of unallocated bookings beginning inside the work region that are due for allocation to a stored busy threshold; and   designating the work region as a busy region if the number of unallocated bookings exceeds the busy threshold.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising designating the busy work region as a hot spot region. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the busy threshold is defined as a ratio of the number of currently active vehicles to a user inputted number. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining that an additional delay rule or fully booked rule is satisfied comprises determining that a number of bookings having a ratio of a pickup countdown time to default delay time below a predetermined value exceeds a threshold for introducing an additional delay or a threshold for introducing a fully booked setting. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining that an additional delay rule or fully booked rule is satisfied comprises determining that the number of unallocated bookings that are due for allocation exceeds a threshold for introducing an additional delay or a threshold for introducing a fully booked setting. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the threshold for introducing an additional delay or the threshold for introducing a fully booked setting is a preset multiple of the busy threshold. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the additional delay for a booking comprises a multiple of the default delay time for the booking. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the additional delay comprises a predetermined time period. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising transmitting a message to a customer making a subsequent booking beginning inside the work region of the additional delay or fully booked status. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the magnitude of the additional delay applied to a booking is dependent on the service group and/or booking type. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein a fully booked setting is applied exclusively to a booking having a priority setting below a priority threshold. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising removing any additional delay or fully booked setting after a predetermined offset time has elapsed. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein defining a geographical area as a work region comprises forming a region group consisting of a plurality of geographical regions. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the fleet of vehicles comprises one or more autonomous vehicles. 
     
     
         16 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-readable code, which, when executed by computing apparatus, causes the computing apparatus to manage a plurality of networked vehicle resources, by:
 defining a geographical area as a work region;   storing, in a data structure, data relating to vehicle hire bookings beginning inside the work region, wherein the booking information for each booking includes a default delay time;   applying a rule to determine that an additional delay condition or fully booked condition is satisfied within the work region; and   in response to positively determining, automatically introducing an additional delay or a fully booked setting, respectively, to at least some of the vehicle hire bookings inside the work region.   
     
     
         17 . Apparatus having at least one processor and at least one memory having computer-readable code stored thereon which when executed controls the at least one processor to manage a plurality of networked vehicle resources by performing:
 defining a geographical area as a work region;   storing, in a data structure, data relating to vehicle hire bookings beginning inside the work region, wherein the booking information for each booking includes a default delay time;   applying a rule to determine that an additional delay condition or fully booked condition is satisfied within the work region; and   in response to positively determining, automatically introducing an additional delay or a fully booked setting, respectively, to at least some of the vehicle hire bookings inside the work region.