Autonomous vehicle enhancement system

An Autonomous Vehicle Enhancement System (AVES) for managing a fleet of autonomous vehicles and dispatching the autonomous vehicles in the fleet to users, comprising:

• AVES vehicle equipment installed on each autonomous vehicle;
• AVES applications installed on computing devices accessible by the users;
• and
• an AVES Central Operations Center (COC) in communication with the AVES vehicle equipment on each autonomous vehicle and the AVES applications installed on the computing devices;
• wherein the AVES COC receives a unique vehicle ID, real-time vehicle location, real-time vehicle availability, real-time vehicle operational state, real-time vehicle condition and real-time vehicle fuel/power-charge level for each autonomous vehicle from the AVES vehicle equipment installed on each autonomous vehicle;
• wherein the AVES COC receives a trip request from a hailing user via a selected AVES application on a selected computing device, the trip request including a unique user ID associated with the hailing user and trip information including pickup location, pickup date/time, destination location, and any intermediate stop location(s);
• wherein the AVES COC determines a trip route based on the trip information for the trip request;
• wherein the AVES COC selects one of the autonomous vehicles to fulfill the trip request based on the trip route, real-time vehicle location, real-time vehicle availability, real-time vehicle operational state, real-time vehicle condition and real-time vehicle fuel/power-charge level;
• wherein the AVES COC generates a unique trip ID for the trip request, and associates the user ID for the hailing user and the vehicle ID for the selected autonomous vehicle with the unique trip ID;
• and
• wherein the AVES COC sends the trip information and/or trip route to the AVES vehicle equipment of the selected autonomous vehicle to guide the selected autonomous vehicle to the pickup location at the pickup time.

A method of managing a fleet of autonomous vehicles in a transportation network and dispatching the autonomous vehicles in the fleet to transportation network users, comprising the steps of:

• providing an Autonomous Vehicle Enhancement System (AVES) comprising an AVES Central Operations Center (COC) in communication with AVES vehicle equipment installed on each autonomous vehicle in the fleet and with AVES applications installed on computing devices accessible by the users;
• the AVES COC monitoring the fleet of autonomous vehicles via the AVES vehicle equipment installed on each autonomous vehicle to determine real-time vehicle location, real-time vehicle availability, real-time vehicle operational state, real-time vehicle condition and real-time vehicle fuel/power-charge level of each autonomous vehicle in the fleet;
• the AVES Central Operations Center (COC) assigning autonomous vehicles in the fleet to an active pool if the autonomous vehicles are available, are in acceptable operational state, are in acceptable condition and have acceptable fuel/power-charge level;
• the AVES COC receiving trip requests from hailing users, selecting autonomous vehicles from the active pool to respond to the trip requests and guiding the selected autonomous vehicles to the hailing users;
• the AVES COC guiding autonomous vehicles in the fleet, which are not in acceptable operational state or condition, to service locations for maintenance service;
• the AVES COC guiding autonomous vehicles in the fleet, which do not have acceptable fuel/power-charge level, to fueling/power-charging stations for fueling/power-charging;
• the AVES COC guiding autonomous vehicles in the active pool, which are not assigned to respond to trip requests from hailing users, to standby locations throughout the transportation network's geographic area.