Passenger-related item loss mitigation

A vehicle control unit for in-vehicle tracking of an item, comprising:

• a memory containing instructions;
• and
• a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory to cause the processor to:
• identify an item within a plurality of vehicle cabin passenger regions;
• associate the identified item with a passenger identified by a passenger identifier;
• update a vehicle cabin inventory database with an entry including the identified item associated with the passenger identifier;
• in response to an occurrence of a passenger exit event, detect a presence of the identified item within the plurality of vehicle cabin passenger regions;
• and
• generate message data with the entry relating to the identified item based on the presence of the identified item within the plurality of vehicle cabin passenger regions.

A method of mitigating passenger-related item loss, the method comprising:

• identifying, via image recognition, an item within vehicle cabin passenger regions as a passenger-related item;
• associating the item with a passenger identified by a passenger identifier when the item is a passenger-related item;
• updating a vehicle cabin inventory database entry with the passenger identifier and the passenger-related item;
• detecting, in response to an occurrence of a passenger exit event, a presence of the passenger-related item within the vehicle cabin passenger regions;
• generating message data based on the presence of the passenger-related item within the vehicle cabin passenger regions and based on the vehicle cabin inventory database entry;
• and
• transmitting the message data for alerting the passenger identified by the passenger identifier.