| 摘要 |
An advance notification system (10) and method notifies system users of the impending arrival of a transportation vehicle (19), for example, a school bus, at a particular vehicle stop. The system (10) general ly includes an on-board vehicle control unit (VCU) (12) for each vehicle (19) and a base station control unit (BSCU) (14) for making telephone calls to users in order to inform the users when the vehicle (19) is a certain predefined time period and/or distance away from t he vehicle stop. The VCU (12) compares elapsed time and/or travelled distance to the programmed scheduled time and/or travelled distanc e to determine if the vehicle (19) is on schedule. If the vehicle (19) is behind or ahead of schedule, the VCU (12) calls the BSCU (14), which then adjusts its calling schedule accordingly. Significantly, a calling report generator (11) in the BSCU (14) allows a system user to solicit a calling report from the BSCU (14) that indicates the time(s) and outcome(s) of any previous notification attempt(s) by the BSCU (14) to the user telephone (29).
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