Patent ID: 8712600

Claim:
A traveling vehicle system comprising: a plurality of traveling vehicles for traveling along a travel route; and a ground controller configured to provide instructions to at least one of the plurality of traveling vehicles, wherein the instructions specify one or more positions on the travel route for collection of data specifying a current condition of a portion of the travel route that is associated with the one or more positions; wherein the at least one of the plurality of traveling vehicles is further configured to report, to the ground controller, the collected data that specifies the current condition of the portion of the travel route that is associated with the one or more positions; and wherein the ground controller is further configured to perform operations comprising: determining, based on the data specifying the current condition and data specifying previous conditions, travel route infrastructure condition values indicative of conditions of infrastructure of the portion of the travel route over multiple time periods; determining an extrapolated travel route infrastructure condition value indicative of an extrapolation of the determined travel route infrastructure condition values to a future time; generating, based on the extrapolated travel route infrastructure condition value, a prediction of a future condition of the portion of the travel route that is associated with the one or more positions, with the future condition pertaining to a time that is subsequent to a time in which the data is collected; determining, by the ground controller, that the future condition of the portion of the travel route that is associated with the one or more positions is an abnormal condition; and in response to determining that the future condition is the abnormal condition, generating an instruction to perform a maintenance operation on the portion of the travel route that is associated with the one or more positions.