Patent attributes
A transport vehicle system includes a track, transport vehicles, placement units to deliver or receive articles, and area controllers that each receive a conveyance instruction from a host controller and control a transport vehicle in a jurisdiction area to execute various instructions. The area controller, in response to receiving from the host controller a conveyance instruction destined for one special placement unit belonging to a jurisdiction area, transmits to another area controller a movement instruction to control an empty transport vehicle to move toward the jurisdiction area, and also controls an empty transport vehicle that has become available in the jurisdiction area after transmission of the movement instruction to execute the conveyance instruction.
