Method and apparatus for reducing data transfer rates from a vehicle data logger when a quality of the cellular or satellite link is poor

A geographical position system for use in a vehicle, the geographical position system comprising:

• (a) a positioning sensing component for collecting geographical position data from the vehicle during vehicle operation, the geographical position data being time indexed;
• (b) a memory in which at least one known poor location associated with poor data link quality is stored;
• (c) a wireless data link;
• and
• (d) a processor for implementing the functions of:
• (i) automatically collecting vehicle data from the vehicle during vehicle operation
• (ii) before transmitting the collected vehicle data to a remote computing site, automatically determining if a current position of the vehicle corresponds to a poor known location;
• and
• (iii) if the current location corresponds to a known poor location, then storing the collected vehicle data for transmission from a different location.

A method for reducing data transfer rates when a quality of the cellular or satellite link is poor, leading to an undesirable amount of failed data transmissions, the method comprising the steps of:

• (a) automatically collecting vehicle data from the vehicle during vehicle operation;
• (b) automatically attempting to transmit the collected vehicle data to a remote computing site;
• (c) automatically determining if a conformation receipt has been received from the remote site, such that if no confirmation receipt is received from the remote computing site;
• automatically attempting to transmit the collected vehicle data to the remote computing site at least one subsequent time during a first predefined time period;
• and
• (d) automatically determining if a conformation receipt has been received from the remote computing site during the first predefined period of time, and if not;
• automatically delaying any additional attempts to transmit collected vehicle data to the remote computing site during a second predefined time period.

A method for automatically generating a set of known poor locations from which data transmission from a vehicle to a remote computing site should not be attempted, comprising the steps of:

• (a) automatically collecting vehicle data from a plurality of vehicles;
• (b) automatically parsing the vehicle data to identify any known poor location defined in the vehicle data;
• (c) automatically adding a specific known poor location so identified to the set of known poor locations if any of the following conditions are met:
• (i) that specific known poor location has been included in vehicle data collected by more than one vehicle;
• and
• (ii) that specific known poor location has been included in vehicle data collected on more than one date.