Patent ID: 8140256

Claim:
A dynamic ride matching method comprising storing a plurality of trips in a trip module, wherein each trip further comprises a plurality of attributes including a source location, a destination location and a shortest path between the source location and the destination location; segmenting the shortest path between the source location and the destination location into a plurality of path segments; defining a plurality of radial buffers, each of the plurality of radial buffers defined around one of each of the plurality of path segments and each of the plurality of radial buffers having a radius equal to a predetermined percentage of a length of the shortest path between the source location and the destination location; associating each of the plurality of radial buffers with at least one attribute of the plurality of attributes for each trip in the trip module; storing at least one scheduling parameter associated with each of the plurality of trips in a scheduling module; and matching trips in the trip module having correlating trip attributes in at least one of the plurality of radial buffers and correlating scheduling parameters in the scheduling module.