US Patent Issued to TOYOTA JIDOSHA on April 29 for "Taxicab system for coordinating taxicab vehicles to accommodate groups of riders" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,288,468, issued on April 29, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Taxicab system for coordinating taxicab vehicles to accommodate groups of riders" was invented by Makoto Kakuchi (Toyota, Japan), Osamu Izumida (Nagoya, Japan), Shunji Inoue (Okazaki, Japan), Takumi Hamajima (Takatsuki, Japan), Mitsushi Kintaka (Kariya, Japan), Toshihiro Andou (Kariya, Japan) and Masamitsu Takahira (Kariya, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A taxicab system includes a plurality of taxicab vehicles which are all autonomous vehicles, and a management device. Each taxicab vehicle can form a vehicle group with other taxicab vehicles accordin...