US 2014/0195071 A1 · EMERGENCY EVENT BASED VEHICLE DATA LOGGING

Abstract

System and method for enabling predefined events to be used to trigger the collection of vehicle position data. A combination GSM device and GPS device is used to collect vehicle position data and to convey that position data to a remote computing device for review and/or analysis. There is a tradeoff between collecting too much data (cell phone bill is too high) and collecting too little data (value added analytics cannot be achieved without sufficient data). The concepts disclosed herein relate to method and apparatus to enable the data collection/transmission paradigm of such a GSM/GPS to be varied (or triggered) based on the detection of one or more predefined events. This enables data which can contribute to value added analytics to be acquired, without wasting airtime on unimportant data.

Claims23

Dependent claims

A method for changing a data logging paradigm used to collect vehicle data from a vehicle, the change in the data logging paradigm being implemented in response to the activation of emergency equipment, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) collecting vehicle data from the vehicle during vehicle operation according to a defined logging paradigm;
(b) determining if an item of emergency equipment at the vehicle has been activated, the item of emergency equipment comprising at least one element selected from a group consisting of:
(i) an emergency siren;
(ii) an emergency light;
(iii) an emergency communications data link;
and
(iv) a panic button;
and
(c) in response to determining that the item of emergency equipment has been activated, modifying the defined logging paradigm to collect additional vehicle data.

6 more elements

A method for generating and using emergency encoded position data from a vehicle equipped with a geographical position tracking component to determine at least emergency based operational characteristic of the vehicle, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) collecting vehicle data from the vehicle during vehicle operation according to a defined logging paradigm, the vehicle data including time indexed geographical position data;
(b) determining if an item of emergency equipment at the vehicle has been activated, the item of emergency equipment comprising at least one element from a group consisting of:
(i) an emergency siren;
(ii) an emergency light;
(iii) an emergency communications data link;
and
(iv) a panic button;
(c) in response to determining that the item of emergency equipment has been activated, modifying the defined logging paradigm to collect additional vehicle data;
(d) conveying the vehicle data to a remote computing device, the vehicle data including at least the time indexed geographical position data and data defining an identify of any emergency equipment that was activated during vehicle operation, such data collectively comprising emergency encoded position data;
and
(e) analyzing the emergency encoded position data to determine at least one operating characteristic of the vehicle.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Emergency event based vehicle data logging

Life of this patent

Emergency event based vehicle data logging

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims23