RU2601830C1 - Automated method of searching for transportation and automated system therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: computer engineering.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to computer engineering, specifically to technologies of searching for transportation by acquiring and converting equivalent information sequences of computer codes and an automated system for its implementation. Disclosed is an automated method for searching based on a user's query transportation from A to station B. Method involves making basic and additional requests to a source of information. In additional requests, round-trip transportation is requested, then obtained results are merged and obtained set of alternatives are presented to user.

EFFECT: technical result is positive probability of increasing number of alternatives of transportation with improved parameters.

4 cl, 3 dwg

Description

The invention relates to computer technology and can be used, for example, as a method of searching for transportation by obtaining and converting equivalent information to sequences of computer codes and an automated complex for its implementation.

There is a method of searching for tickets in which the buyer, wishing to purchase an air ticket, selects the flight direction, indicates the desired date of flight and finally selects the air ticket for a specific flight [patent RU 2174709].

Also known is a system that provides a unified interface to various Global Distribution Systems [patent RU 2222825], and a system that allows a wide range of users to access ticket reservations through terminals [patent RU 2365997].

Automated systems are also known that combine flight options offered by several sellers using the above technologies in a single meta-search issue: www.aviasales.ru, www.skyscanner.com, www.kayak.com and others.

The imperfection of the known solutions lies in the insufficient quality of the automatic search for possible flight options.

The problem to be solved by the invention is to improve the search for transportation with the achievement of a technical result in the form of a positive probability of an increase in the number of transportation options presented to the user. An additional technical result is the appearance of a positive probability of an increase in the number of transportation options presented to the user with improved compared with the parameters of the transportation options found at the base request. These technical results are also achieved using an automated system for implementing the proposed method. Their use in the search and display of transportation information can improve the search.

For convenience and an unambiguous understanding, it is advisable to give decipherments and definitions of the designations, symbols and / or terms used below.

Information - a collection of all kinds of data with the ability to convert and split them into minimal elements, for example, yes and / or no.

Computer code - an electromagnetic signal transmitted through physical communication channels and / or stored on tangible media, equivalent to a minimum information element

A sequence and / or set of computer codes is a set of electromagnetic signals transmitted through physical communication channels and / or stored on material media and equivalent to arrays of information of various volumes.

The equivalence of a sequence and / or combination of computer codes to an information array is their one-to-one mapping, that is, the technical possibility of their one-to-one conversion by means of an appropriate device.

In the future, unless otherwise specified, operations of the claimed method with information are operations with sequences of equivalent computer codes.

Internal information storage - a device or part of a device that is part of the system that implements the system, which stores and issues information upon request in the form of sequences of computer codes equivalent to it.

User - an automated system or person oriented to use information about the transportation, including in the form of an equivalent set of computer codes, requesting it, analyzing it, and possibly performing any actions with it.

User request - a user’s request to a system that implements the invention, in which the user uses the search details.

Search attribute - a lot of information reflecting the requirement for transportation. Examples include departure and return dates, number of passengers, city or terminal of departure and arrival.

GDS - Global Distribution System. There are several main GDS in the world: 5 international (Saber, Amadeus, Galileo, Worldspan, Gabriel - all aviation) and 3 Russian (Siren 2000, Siren 2, 3 - aviation and Express - railway), each of which has its own interface.

Source of information - an automated system or systems issuing (issuing) upon receipt of a request to receive information about the transportation options available for purchase, the requested information. Examples of a source of information include: GDS, a metasearch ticket system, a ticket agency server, or its own internal repository of information. Also, information sources may have the ability to order transportation, for example: GDS or the server of a ticket agency.

Terminal - a physical place of the beginning or end of transportation, for example, an airport, train station, bus station, berth. In one city there can be several terminals, and the source of information, as a rule, gives out the search details “departure city”, “arrival city”, possible options from all terminals of the required mode of transport in the specified city, and also shows options with a change with a change terminal.

Departure / arrival point - used for convenience, the general name of the search details is “departure / arrival terminal” or “departure / arrival city”.

Information request is the appeal of a system that implements the invention to a source of information in which search details are used.

The basic request is the appeal of the system that implements the invention to the source of information, which uses the search details from the user’s request.

The base number of transportation options is the number of transportation options received when performing a basic request for information.

The total number of transportation options is the number of transportation options obtained after performing the operations of the method.

The basic parameter is the best transportation parameter obtained when performing a basic request for information. For example: shortest distance, minimum transportation time, minimum number of transit points, minimum price.

The final parameter is the best transportation parameter obtained after performing the operations of the method.

Corresponding transportation options - information on transportation that matches the search details.

Additional information about previously completed searches - information stored in numerical form about previous searches; its examples are: the total number of transportation options found; the number of transportation options that were not present in the relevant transportation options for the basic request; the best value of a parameter, etc.

Designations:

N ₀ - Base parameter

N _min - Total parameter

P ₀ - Basic parameter

P _min - Total parameter

I - the number of additional requests automatically generated and sent to the source of information

S - saved parameter value, reflecting additional information about previously completed searches

Res = N ₀ -N _min - for each specific search

Res _add = P ₀ -P _min - for each specific search

V Res is the probability of obtaining Res> 0.

V Res _add - probability of getting Res _add > 0.

Thus, the achievement of the technical result is to obtain V Res> 0, and the additional technical result is V Res _add > 0 (with the subsequent presentation of information to the user).

As brief information revealing the essence of the invention, it should be noted that the achieved technical results are provided using the proposed automated method by which basic and additional requests to the source of information are produced, while additional requests request round-trip transportation. And then present the search results to the user.

Technical results are also achieved by modifying the inventive method, in which the date of return transportation in additional requests is selected depending on additional information about previously performed searches.

These technical results are also provided using an automated complex for performing operations of the claimed method according to claim 1. The complex is a computer configured to perform operations of the method according to claim 1.

The indicated technical results are also achieved using a modification of the automated complex, made with the possibility of ordering transportation.

When presenting information confirming the possibility of carrying out the invention, it is advisable to describe the proposed method in more detail. When describing the method, it is impractical to dwell in detail on operations known from published sources and existing well-known practices, in particular, obtaining information about a route network, presenting information to a user, including in the form of an equivalent set of computer codes, receiving information from its sources or receiving and transfer of the reservation order.

A detailed description of the claimed method and device, it is advisable to explain using the drawings, which schematically depict:

FIG. 1. The graph of the average values of V Res and V Res _add > 0 from the choice of I.

FIG. 2. The graph of the dependence of the average value of the values of V Res and V Res _add > 0 on the choice of I in the modification of the method in which the date of return transportation in additional requests is selected depending on additional information about previously performed searches.

FIG. 3. The functioning scheme of the automated complex.

Graphs are obtained by graphical display of experimentally obtained values.

In FIG. 3 drawings are indicated:

1. User

2. Automated complex

3. Direction of user request

4. Direction of the basic request transmitted to the information source

5. Direction of transportation options received from the source of information corresponding to the basic request

6. Direction of additional requests transmitted to the source of information

7. Direction of transportation options received from the source of information corresponding to additional requests

8. Direction of transportation options to be presented to the user

9. Source of information

10. Submission of a user request for a transportation order

11. Direction of the request for transportation order transmitted to the source of information

12. Direction of the results of processing a request for transportation order received from a source of information

13. The direction of the user received from the source of information the results of processing the request for a transportation order

It is advisable to describe in detail the predominantly distinctive essential features of the operations of the proposed method, which consist in the fact that using the search details received from the user, including departure and arrival points A and B, they make a basic request to the source of information and receive information on available options from it transportation. They also make additional requests to the source of information, while in additional requests they request a round-trip transportation, that is, from point A to point B, and then from point B to point A. After that, the results are combined and the set of options thus obtained is presented to the user . If the user selects any of the options received as a result of additional requests, he will not use the return transportation.

The achievement of the technical results was proved experimentally and is reflected in the graph of FIG. 1. On the portal www.skytrick.com, flights were searched from Moscow to 10 popular cities (Sochi, Simferopol, Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Paris, New York, Warsaw, Berlin). At the same time, the dates of return transportation were selected at intervals of 1 to 75 days, determined randomly so that they would not be repeated. There was an increase in the likelihood of finding additional options for flights that were not found in the basic search: if you selected one return date, it averaged 8.23%, if you selected all possible dates, it averaged 22.92%. An additional parameter of the found flight options was also investigated - the minimum price. There was an increase in the likelihood of finding a lower price on additional requests: if you selected one return date, it averaged 0.12%, if you selected all possible dates, it averaged 1.18%.

Technical results are also achieved in the modification of the claimed method, in which the date of return transportation in additional requests is selected depending on the parameter characterizing additional information about previously performed searches. The dependence consists in the choice in additional requests for the return transportation of dates in ascending (or descending, if this corresponds to the nature of the information) parameter S. corresponding to this pair of “departure-return” dates.

Achievement of technical results is proved experimentally. The experimental conditions were similar to the previous one, but the dates of the return transportation were selected by increasing the parameter S, for which the minimum found price was chosen. The experimental results are shown in figure 2: to achieve almost the same indicators it was enough to make four queries, and a further increase in their number gives a slight increase in the values of V Res and V Res _add .

Technical results also provide during the operation of an automated complex that implements the proposed method according to claim 1. The complex is a computer configured to perform the operations of the method according to claim 1. The user’s interaction with the complex can be as direct (for example, by entering data using the keyboard included in its structure), and through communication channels (for example, the Internet).

The functioning scheme of the complex is shown in FIG. 3. Consider in more detail the functioning of an automated complex that implements the proposed method.

From user 1, an automated complex 2 receives 3 user requests, then passes it in the form of an equivalent sequence of computer codes 4 to a source of information 9 and receives 5 from a source of information (i.e. one or more systems) 9 in the form of equivalent computer sequences codes transportation options corresponding to the base request. Also, according to the proposed method, additional requests are generated and, in the form of an equivalent sequence of computer codes, they transmit 6 to the information source 9 and receive 7 from the information source 9 in the form of sequences of computer codes equivalent to them, transportation options corresponding to additional requests. Then, the obtained options are combined and 8 are presented to their user 1.

An example of evidence of the operability of this complex is its implementation in the form of a hardware-software complex with the network address www.skytrick.com, which was used for the above experiments.

Modification of the described complex is also practically useful and effective, in which the automated complex is made with the possibility of receiving from the user and transferring to the information source a transportation order containing information about the selected option, passenger or cargo details and, if necessary, payment details. Also in this modification, the complex is configured to receive information from a source and transmit to the user the results of order processing. The functioning of this modification in terms of the implementation of the operations of the claimed method is completely similar to that described above, and the order processing operations are well known.

The above is enough to understand the essence of achieving a technical result using the declared objects. The use of interconnected sets of essential features of all declared objects to prove the achievement of a technical result is confirmed by experiments.

The foregoing clearly shows that the achievement of the specified technical result can only be ensured by an inextricably interconnected set of all the essential features of the claimed objects reflected in the claims. The differences indicated in it give reason to conclude that the technical solution is new, and the totality of the claimed claims in connection with their non-obviousness is about its inventive step, which is also proved by their detailed description given above. Compliance with the criterion of "industrial applicability" of the proposed method is proved both by its implementation and by the absence in the claimed claims of any features that are practically not practicable on an industrial scale. The declared values were obtained on the basis of statistical processing of the results of experimental studies, analysis and generalization of them, as well as using inventive intuition, based on the conditions for achieving the specified technical result.

Claims (4)

1. An automated way of searching at the user's request for transportations from point A to point B, for which basic and additional requests to the source of information are made, while in additional requests they request a round-trip transportation, then combine the results and present the resulting set of options to the user . 2. The method according to claim 1, in which the date of the return transportation in additional requests is selected depending on additional information about previously performed searches. 3. An automated complex for performing the operations of the method according to claim 1, which is a computer configured to perform operations of the method according to claim 1. 4. The automated complex according to claim 3, made with the possibility of ordering transportation.

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