Patent US 5,799,263

A public transit system uses a plurality of intracell vehicles to service transit requests in individual transit cells, and the transit cells are connected by intracell vehicles which travel between cell terminals located within the respective transit cells. The intracell vehicles are automatically dispatched by a dispatching system (12) which assigns each transit request to an intracell vehicle servicing a matching transit route or soft route comprising a geographical area and a route travel direction. The dispatching system (12) uses a process for selecting the most appropriate vehicle to handle a transit request where no prior route matches the request. This initial transit request then defines a new soft route for the vehicle to which it is assigned. Transit requests are preferably communicated to the dispatching system via a local telephone system and locations within the transit cell are defined by telephone numbers or other suitable identifiers.