Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and non-transitory storage medium

An information processing method causing a computer to execute steps of:

• acquiring a level of crowdedness of an intended store from a terminal device located in the intended store, the intended store being a store as a destination of an automatically operated vehicle in which a user is riding;
• in response to the acquired level of crowdedness of the intended store being greater than a given threshold, and prior to the automatically operated vehicle arriving at the destination of the store, acquiring a level of crowdedness of a plurality of other stores belonging to a same business group, and extracting a store with a lower level of crowdedness than the intended store as a given recommended store from among the plurality of other stores belonging to a same business group as the intended store;
• generating a notification indicating the given recommended store and a location of the given recommended store, the notification including a suggestion advertisement suggesting changing the destination of the automatically operated vehicle from the intended store to the given recommended store;
• transmitting instructions including the generated notification to display the suggestion advertisement on a display of a mobile terminal of the user riding in the automatically operated vehicle prior to the automatically operated vehicle arriving at the destination of the store, the mobile terminal being a terminal located in the automatically operated vehicle;
• and
• in response to receiving acceptance of the given recommended store in the notification, generating and transmitting, to the mobile terminal, instructions including information for changing the destination of the automatically operated vehicle from the intended store to the given recommended store, whereby the destination of the automatically operated vehicle is changed from the intended store to the location of the given recommended store.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing an information processing program for causing a computer to execute steps of:

• acquiring a level of crowdedness of an intended store from a terminal device located in the intended store, the intended store being a store as a destination of an automatically operated vehicle in which a user is riding;
• in response to the acquired level of crowdedness of the intended store being greater than a given threshold, and prior to the automatically operated vehicle arriving at the destination of the store, acquiring a level of crowdedness of a plurality of other stores belonging to a same business group, and extracting a store with a lower level of crowdedness than the intended store as a given recommended store from among the plurality of other stores belonging to the same business group as the intended store;
• generating a notification indicating the given recommended store and a location of the given recommended store, the notification including a suggestion advertisement suggesting changing the destination of the automatically operated vehicle from the intended store to the given recommended store;
• transmitting instructions including the generated notification to display the suggestion advertisement on a display of a mobile terminal of the user riding in the automatically operated vehicle prior to the automatically operated vehicle arriving at the destination of the store, the mobile terminal being a terminal located in the automatically operated vehicle;
• and
• in response to receiving acceptance of the given recommended store in the notification, generating and transmitting, to the mobile terminal, instructions including information for changing the destination of the automatically operated vehicle from the intended store to the given recommended store, whereby the destination of the automatically operated vehicle is changed from the intended store to the location of the given recommended store.