Method of presuming traffic conditions by using floating car data and system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions by using floating data

• US 20020120389A1
• Filed: 09/20/2001
• Published: 08/29/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/23/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Fushiki, Takumi, Yamane, Kenichiro, Yokota, Takayoshi, Inoue, Takeshi
• Granted Patent: US 6,546,330 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/117
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0104 Measuring and analyzing of parameters relative to traffic conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/20 Monitoring the location of vehicles belonging to a group, e.g. fleet of vehicles, countable or determined number of vehicles

Abstract

A method of presuming traffic conditions for implementing a forecast and a presumption of traffic jam situation in an area where probe cars are not traveling currently, in which the probe cars send floating car data that is times and positions of traveled areas to center facilities, and the center accumulates the floating car data in a floating car data database by traffic conditions presumption means and also presumes forecast traffic jam information in the forward areas of the probe cars and presumed traffic jam information in the backward areas thereof by using the current floating car data and the floating car data database accumulated from the past to the present.

Claims

1. A method of presuming traffic conditions by using time information and positional information in a passing route gathered by a movable body,

wherein floating car data and a group of floating car data accumulated from the past to the present including the data gathered by other movable bodies are used to presume the traffic jam situation in the forward sections of the movable body currently gathering said floating car data.

2. A method of presuming traffic conditions by using floating car data,

wherein said floating car data is used to presume a traffic jam situation in sections from backward to forward around the probe car.

3. The method of presuming traffic conditions according to claim 2,

wherein sensors installed on a road are used to presume said traffic jam situation.

4. A system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions, comprising:

floating car data;

traffic conditions presumption means for, by using the floating car data and a group of the floating car data including data gathered by other movable bodies accumulated from the past to the present, presuming the traffic jam situation in the forward sections of the movable body currently gathering said floating car data;

communication means for receiving the floating car data sent from a plurality of probe cars; and

a floating car data database storing a group of floating car data accumulated from the past to the present,

wherein the traffic jam situation in a road network is forecasted or presumed, and said traffic jam situation is presented to a user as presented traffic jam information.

5. A system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions, comprising:

floating car data;

traffic conditions presumption means for presuming a traffic jam situation in sections from backward to forward around the probe car by using the floating car data;

communication means for receiving the floating car data sent from a plurality of probe cars; and

a floating car data database storing a group of floating car data accumulated from the past to the present,

wherein traffic jam situation in a road network is forecasted or presumed, and said traffic jam situation is presented to a user as presented traffic jam information.

6. An on-vehicle terminal having communication means for receiving surrounding traffic conditions provided from the center facilities, and also having traffic conditions presumption means for forecasting traffic jam situation in the forward section of its own vehicle by using the traffic information and floating car data gathered by its own vehicle.

7. A system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions having communication means for sending surrounding traffic conditions to the on-vehicle terminal according to claim 6.

8. A system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions,

wherein the surrounding traffic conditions according to claim 7 is a group of floating car data accumulated from the past to the present by a plurality of probe cars.

9. A system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions having communication means for receiving floating car data gathered by individual probe cars,

wherein the floating car data and surrounding traffic conditions are used to forecast a traffic jam situation forward of the probe car having sent the floating car data and it is presented to a user as presented traffic jam information.

10. A system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions,

wherein the surrounding traffic conditions according to claim 9 are floating car data accumulated from the past to the present.

11. A system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions,

wherein traffic jam situation is presumed by at least one of the traffic conditions presumption means according to any one of claims 4 to 10, and reliability in a section so presumed is calculated so as to present to a user the presumed traffic jam situation and the reliability as presented traffic information.

12. An on-vehicle terminal to be mounted on a probe car in the system for presuming and presenting traffic conditions according to any one of claims 4, 5, 9, 10 and 11 having position detecting means for measuring floating car data and communication means for sending the floating car data to the center facilities.

13. A communication system for transmitting presented traffic information that is a traffic jam situation or surrounding traffic conditions presumed by at least one of the traffic conditions presumption means according to any one of claims 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

14. A user terminal, comprising:

one communication means for receiving as presented traffic jam information a traffic jam situation presumed by at least one of the traffic conditions presumption means; and

presentation means for presenting the presented traffic jam information to a user according to any one of claims 4 to 11.