Technical Field
The present invention relates to human transport management system and method
and more particularly relates to a web based system for automating human
transport domain.
Background
A number of systems have been devised for dispatching of vehicles or other
services upon demand. The systems are deployed for transportation of humans in
big corporates/companies such as BPO, ITeS, IT etc. The complexity of
dispatching systems ranges from fully manual systems to systems employing
elaborate computer databases and tracking systems. To dispatch vehicles
accurately and in a timely fashion, several things must be done concurrently.
Vehicles must be tracked so that their location is known and can be efficiently
selected for future jobs. The position and status of dispatched vehicles must be
monitored to determine if they are on time or delayed. Customer requests must be
received and posted for dispatching and then dispatched. Delayed arrivals should
be identified and reported to the customer as soon as possible. A fully manual
dispatching system requires a single human being to perform all of the tasks as
stated.
A database server for storing a database of customer request records is maintained
in which new records are generated by call takers who receive incoming telephone
calls from customers. The customer requests are then reported to dispatchers who
determine when the requests are in need of service and dispatch a vehicle as
needed. There are also commercially available systems for assisting the
dispatching tasks. Companies that provide transportation facilities use a
transportation management system implemented by an appropriately programmed
computer. The transportation management system has several software
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components, including a planning component and an execution component. The
planning component focuses on the creation of the trips and the created trips are
output in a transportation plan. A transportation plan is examined by a human
transportation planner who may edit or tweak several of the trips therein. If the trip
is inefficient then it is manually modified by adjusting one or more trips. Such
manual modification of trips is time consuming because the human transportation
planner must review numerous trips in order to decide how the overly-circuitous
trip is to be modified. After the planning, the planner may be individually released
for execution. There may be instances where the human transportation planner
may miss out on further consolidation opportunities to improve utilization of that
vehicle even though he may have already spent time performing the analysis to do
so. Moreover, as there are typically hundreds of trips in a plan, manually
evaluating and progressing trips is also time consuming and cumbersome.
Another disadvantage of manual involvement in the release of trips is that if new
orders have come in and/or existing orders have been modified or canceled, the
plan may need to be manually re-worked some more at this stage further delaying
release of the plan to the execution component. Also, by the time the plan is
released, it may become too late or too expensive to find a carrier to perform one
or more trips in the plan. Further limitations in the prior art includes the absence of
the system to have the visibility of the transport requests placed by employees, no
acknowledgement of the employees requests, manual approval system and absence
of feedback system. The other problem areas in administration and transport
department are Manual monthly/yearly data consolidation, problems while
managing different Vendors, online information of requests status, vehicle
availability & vehicle status, maintenance of historical data, maintaining the
synchronization between the various departments like HR, Finance etc. i.e.
visibility across various departments, Claims from vendor is not measurable, it is
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totally dependent on person's expertise which results in over expenditure, no
Integration with LMS, which leads to extra vehicle utilization.
There are various systems and methods devised for automating the management of
human transport domain as mentioned below.
US 2007/0219834 discloses a system, method and software product manages
transportation crew logistic. An arrival/departure feed provides arrival and
departure times of transportation equipment. A crew scheduling system feed
provides information of crew members traveling on the equipment and hotels are
notified of crew members prior to their arrival. Stored value cards, for use with a
plurality of point of sale devices, are issued to each crew member and a Per Diem
manager disburses Per Diem amounts to the stored value cards. A reporting
manager generates reports of transactions by one or more of: point of sale devices,
a card processing center, the arrival notification manager and the Per Diem
manager. A database records transactions and data utilized by one or more of; the
point of sale devices, the card processing center, an arrival notification manager,
the Per Diem manager and the reporting manager.
US 7343243 provides a system for controlling vehicles (20) to provide
transportation services without need for human intervention. A database (10)
stores records each documenting needed transportation services. Processing
circuitry (which may be one or several networked computers) performs a
dispatching process (26) which reviews these records, locates records indicating a
need for immediate transportation service, and instructs vehicles to provide the
service. The processing circuitry also performs a monitoring process (28) which
monitors vehicle activities by reviewing the records, and automatically obtained
vehicle activity information, to identify transportation services which are not being
adequately provided, and refer these to human dispatchers (16) for special
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attention. A variety of methods for obtaining and updating vehicle activity
information are disclosed, as are various applications for the system.
Another technique known as Octavia for managing human transport is provided by
Sreego Solutions that generates the most economical trips through an extremely
user friendly interface. Routes are generated through a series of internal complex
processes that effectively result in least utilization of the number of cabs, thus
minimizing the total travel distance. Octavia is browser based software, thereby
allowing multiple users to log in from their own desks instead of going to the
installed computer each time for generating routes. User rights are configurable
and the transport manager can monitor all the activities sitting right at his desk.
Another solution is Mpower provided by Arya Omnitalk that provide various
features such as toll collection system, vehicle tracking solution, auto routing
solution etc. However, there are certain limitations in the above stated solutions as
said solutions do not fully comply with the requirements of managing human
transport domain.
Hence, there is a need of a system and method that can provide well integrated
GUI and can achieve better results in terms of route planning, vehicle
optimization, clubbing ratio etc.
Objects and Summary
The object of the present invention is to provide a web based system and method
for automating human transport domain.
It is an object of the present invention to minimize the turn-around time in route
generation process.
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It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved customer
satisfaction by means of efficient and fool proof transport management system.
To achieve the aforementioned objects, the present invention provides a method
for management of human transport, said method comprising the steps of:
• providing and/or updating the arrival and departure time of the users
utilizing the transport service;
• generating optimized routes based on the arrival and departure time
of the users;
• assigning vendor and/or vehicle information to the generated routes;
• generating trip details and communicating said details to the vendors
and employees; and
• generating billing report for the vendors and other graphical reports
for decision making purposes.
The present invention further provides a system for management of human
transport, said system comprising of:
• means for providing and/or updating the arrival and departure time
of the users utilizing the transport service;
• means for generating optimized routes based on the arrival and
departure time of the users;
• means for assigning vendor and/or vehicle information to the
generated routes;
• means for generating trip details and communicating said details to
the vendors and employees; and
• means for generating billing report for the vendors and other
graphical reports for decision making purposes.
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Brief Description of the Drawings
The detailed description is described with reference to the accompanying figures.
In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in
which the reference number first appears. The same numbers are used throughout
the drawings to reference like features and components.
Fig. 1 is an exemplary system illustrating the components of transport
management system according to the present invention.
Fig. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the architecture of a computer system that
can be deployed by different components of the transport management system
according to the present invention.
Fig. 3 is an exemplary graphical report that is generated in the transport
management system according to the present invention.
Detailed Description
System and method for management of human transport is described. The system
and method is not intended to be restricted to any particular form or arrangement,
or any specific embodiment, or any specific use, disclosed herein, since the same
may be modified in various particulars or relations without departing from the
spirit or scope of the claimed invention herein shown and described of which the
system and/or method shown is intended only for illustration and disclosure of an
operative embodiment and not to show all of the various forms or modifications in
which this invention might be embodied or operated.
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The instant invention provides a technique of managing human transport in an
organization by way of interaction between various departments to provide an
efficient and fully parameterized system to the customers or employees of the
organization. The various departments in an organization can be transport
department, billing department, finance department and other sub departments that
operate in chronological order to provide transport facility.
The techniques described herein may be used in many different operating
environments and systems. An exemplary environment that is suitable for
practicing various implementations is discussed in the following section with
respect to the accompanying figures.
EXEMPLARY SYSTEM
Fig. I is an exemplary system 100 illustrating the components of according to the
present invention.
The major components of system 100 comprises of manager 102, employees 104,
transport department 114, billing department 106, P2P team 108 and finance
department 110. Manager 102 manages the data of the employees 104 of the
organization. The manager 102 is coupled with GTT (Global time tracker) module
that can be used to update the employee shift details, to perform geocoding and to
create/cancel/approve ad hoc cab request for themselves and for their direct
reportees or employees. An ad hoc cab request refers to the request raised
instantaneously for availing transport services. Geocoding refers to a process of
identifying a location on the digital map by finding associated geographic
coordinates (often expressed as latitude and longitude) from other geographic data,
such as street addresses, or zip codes (postal codes). GTT module can also be used
by employees for performing different tasks for e.g. shift rostering. Shift rostering
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is the task of preparing shift schedules by feeding the arrival and departure time of
the employees.
Another module integrated with system 100 is SAP that is required to get
employees master data like employee SAP code, name, address, work location,
contact details etc. The other data that can be maintained using the SAP module
includes shifts, vendors, vehicles, fleet, driver's details, facilities provided and
company details. In the exemplary system of the present invention, employee's
master data is automatically updated at 3 AM everyday which can be changed as
per the organization rules, policies and requirements. Above mentioned modules
are exemplary and various other advanced modules available in the market can
also be used for achieving required functionality.
The transport department 114 can be deployed for the generation and the
execution of the optimized routes. The transport department can generate multiple
graphical reports i.e. MIS reports for easier employees tracking. The billing
department 106 can generate billing reports based on different parameters. The
Purchase to Procurement (P2P) team 108 can validates the reports provided by the
billing department and the forward the same to the finance department 110. The
finance department 110 finally releases the payment to be paid to the vendors.
EXEMPLARY METHOD
An exemplary method illustrating the flow of the data between various
departments to provide transport facility is explained with reference to Fig. 1.
The transport department 114 imports shift rosters' data from GTT twice a week
for generating routes of employees. The imported shift data is then sent to routing
engine for route generation and after the routes are generated they are sent back to
the transport department from the routing engine. The routes can also be generated
based on the geocoded address as explained above. Although the routes generated
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are optimized routes however, if required the transport team can optimize the
generated routes for the employees by editing operations such as
cutting/pasting/canceling/No-show etc. from one route to another. Whenever an ad
hoc request is raised, it can be clubbed in existing routes or a separate route can
also be created if clubbing is not feasible. After doing the required optimization,
vendor/vehicle information is assigned to routes for the purpose of route execution
on ground. A trip sheet is generated for the routes to be executed. A trip sheet
includes details like employees' addresses, their estimated time of arrival (ETAs)
if guard is required in the route, vendor/vehicle details. Employees are informed of
their pick up time and vendor details through SMS or emails. Alternatively,
employees can also login anytime in the transport department 114 of the system
100 to check these details. The trip sheets' hard copies are then distributed to fleet
vendors and vendors in turn distribute trip sheets to concerned drivers for actual
run of routes. In the event, there is a breakdown of the route or it is referred back
by the fleet vendors a different vendor is allocated by the transport team for
handling the same. After the actual run is completed, routes are frozen which
means that any further editing operation to the routes is disabled by the transport
department. It further provides an indication to the billing team or department 106
to generate vendor billing reports.
Billing department 106 takes the frozen routes for further processing and
captures/checks different parameters such as actual KMs run on routes, penalties
imposed on routes, reimbursements amounts on routes, debit/credit to vendors for
a specific duration and total toll taxes claimed by vendor for that duration. After
capturing the required data, vendor billing and employee invoice reports are
generated and sent to P2P team 108. P2P team 108 then validates the reports
provided by billing department and then sends a summary report to finance
department 110 for payment processing. Finance department provides the payment
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in form of cheques to transport team for distribution to vendors. Transport team
then distributes the payment cheques to concerned vendors.
The different tasks performed by the various departments result in the generation
of multiple graphical reports. The reports can be Detail Trip Sheet, Cab
Occupancy, Adhoc Reason Analysis, No-Show Report, Cancellation Report,
Refer-back & Breakdown Report, Lady Employee Safety Report, Adhoc Details
Report, Cab Users Report, Route Edit Log Report and many others depending
upon the facility provided by different departments. An exemplary graphical
report in the form of a chart indicating vehicle utilization is illustrated in Fig. 3.
All the components of the system 100 make use of a computer system as
illustrated in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the architecture of a computer system that
can be deployed by different components of the transport management system
according to the present invention. The computer 200 includes a processor 202,
memory 204, and one or more input and/or output (I/O) devices 206 (or
peripherals) that are communicatively coupled via a local interface 208. The local
interface 208 can be, for example one or more buses or other wired or wireless
connections, as is known in the art. The local interface 208 can have additional
elements, such as controllers, buffers (caches), drivers, repeaters, and receivers, to
enable communications. Further, the local interface can include address, control,
and/or data connections to enable appropriate communications among the
aforementioned components.
The processor 202 is a hardware device for executing software, particularly that
stored in memory 204. The processor 202 can be any custom made or
commercially available processor, a central processing unit (CPU), an auxiliary
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processor among several processors associated with the host computer 200, a
semiconductor based microprocessor (in the form of a microchip or chip set), a
macroprocessor, or generally any device for executing software instructions.
The memory 204 includes any one or combination of volatile memory elements
(e.g., random access memory (RAM, such as DRAM, SRAM, SDRAM, etc.)) and
nonvolatile memory elements (e.g., ROM, hard drive, tape, CDROM, etc.).
Moreover, the memory 204 may incorporate electronic, magnetic, optical, and/or
other types of storage media.
The software in memory 204 includes one or more separate programs 210, 212,
each of which comprises an ordered listing of executable instructions for
implementing logical functions and for generating graphical reports. In the
example of FIG. 2, the software in the memory 204 includes a suitable operating
system (O/S) 210. The operating system 210 essentially controls the execution of
other computer programs, and provides scheduling, input-output control, file and
data management, memory management, and communication control and related
services.
The I/O devices 206 preferably include input devices, for example, a keyboard,
mouse, scanner, microphone, etc. Furthermore, the I/O devices 206 preferably
include output devices, for example, a printer, display, etc. Finally, the I/O devices
206 further preferably include devices that communicate both inputs and outputs,
for instance, a modulator/demodulator (modem; for accessing another device,
system, or network), a radio frequency (RF) or other transceiver, a telephonic
interface, a bridge, a router, etc.
The advantages possessed by the present invention includes fully parameterized
system as various parameters are taken into account by each department for
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performing required function, role based access, centrally hosted system,
integration with other corporate systems, usage of multiple vehicle types,
automated routing process, easier ad hoc requests management, efficient handling
of on-fly requests, online vendor allocation, direct cost saving while vendor billing
online billing generation, MIS reports, performance analysis, custom messaging
via SMS/Email, alert messages/emails, easier employees tracking, improved cab
occupancy, resource saving, minimized turn-around time in route generation
process, improved customer satisfaction.
The embodiments described above and illustrated in the figures are presented by
way of example only and are not intended as a limitation upon the concepts and
principles of the present invention. Elements and components described herein
may be further divided into additional components or joined together to form
fewer components for performing the same functions. As such, it will be
appreciated by one having ordinary skill in the art that various changes in the
elements and their configuration and arrangement are possible without departing
from the spirit and scope of the present invention as set forth in the appended
claims.
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Claim:

1. A method for management of human transport, said method comprising the
steps of:
• providing and/or updating the arrival and departure time of the users
utilizing the transport service;
• generating optimized routes based on the arrival and departure time
of the users;
• assigning vendor and/or vehicle information to the generated routes;
• generating trip details and communicating said details to the vendors
and employees; and
• generating billing report for the vendors and other graphical reports
for decision making purposes.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said method further comprises
the step of maintaining data of users, shifts, vendors, vehicles, drivers, fleet,
facilities, company.
3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said method further comprises
the step of capturing refer-backs and breakdown of routes.
4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said method further comprises
the step of disabling any editing operation to the routes once executed at
ground.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the routes can be generated
based on location of the users using digital maps.
6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein generated routes can be further
optimized by editing operations.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the routes can be automatically
adjusted.
8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said method provides step for
sending customized emails/SMS to employees/vendors.
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9. The method as claimed in claim 1. wherein said method is enabled to
handle ad hoc requests of the users for availing transport services.
10. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein ad hoc request is clubbed in the
generated routes or a separate route is created.
11. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the other graphical reports
include cab occupancy, reason analysis, employee invoice, No-Show or a
combination thereof.
12. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the billing report is generated
based on actual distance covered in routes, penalties imposed on the routes,
reimbursements amounts on the routes, debit/credit/generic penalties/toll-
taxes to a vendor, or a combination thereof.
13. A system for management of human transport, said system comprising of:

• means for providing and/or updating the arrival and departure time
of the users utilizing the transport service;
• means for generating optimized routes based on the arrival and
departure time of the users;
• means for assigning vendor and/or vehicle information to the
generated routes;
• means for generating trip details and communicating said details to
the vendors and employees; and
• means for generating billing report for the vendors and other
graphical reports for decision making purposes.

14. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said system further comprises
the means for maintaining data of users, shifts, vendors, vehicles, drivers,
fleet, facilities, company.
15. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said system further comprises
the means for capturing refer-backs and breakdown of routes.
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16. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said system further comprises
the means for disabling any editing operation to the routes once executed at
ground.
17. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein routes can be generated based
on location of the users using digital maps.
18. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein generated routes can be further
optimized by editing operations.
19. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the routes can be automatically
adjusted.
20. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the system provides the means
for sending customized emails/SMS to employees/vendors.
21. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein said system is configured to
handle ad hoc requests of the users for availing transport services.
22. The system as claimed in claim 21, wherein the ad hoc request is clubbed in
the generated routes or a separate route is created.
23. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the other graphical reports
include cab occupancy, reason analysis, employee invoice, No-Show or a
combination thereof.
24. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the billing report is generated
based on actual distance covered in routes, penalties imposed on the routes,
reimbursements amounts on the routes, debit/credit/generic penalties/toll-
taxes to a vendor, or a combination thereof.
25.A computer program product for management of human transport,
comprising one or more computer readable media configured to perform
said method.

Dated this 26th day of July 2010

Of Anand and Anand Advocates
Agents for the Applicant