METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDNG AND USING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION

• US 20100253549A1
• Filed: 06/07/2007
• Published: 10/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Kim, Young In, Seo, Chu Hyun, Kim, Seung Won, Park, Sang O
• Granted Patent: US 8,446,296 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/994
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/123 indicating the position of vehicles, e.g. scheduled vehicles; Managing passenger vehicles circulating according to a fixed timetable, e.g. buses, trains, tramstransmission of navigation instructions to vehicles G08G1/0968

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method and apparatus for providing traffic information of public transportation means, such as a bus, and utilizing the provided information. A method of encoding public traffic information according to the present invention creates, for an arbitrary bus stop, a first component including the number of buses to arrive at the bus stop and as many pieces of bus information as the created number of buses, and incorporates the first component along with an identifier allocated to the bus stop into a second component. The second component is then incorporated into a transfer message. A sequence of messages, each being constructed as described above, is wirelessly transmitted.

Claims

1. A method for encoding public transportation information, comprising:

creating, for a bus stop, a first component containing number of buses to arrive at the bus stop and as many pieces of bus information as the number of buses to arrive; and

assigning an identifier for the bus stop to the created first component and incorporating the created first component along with the assigned identifier into a second component.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating status information containing the created second component and creating message management information including creation time of the status information.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

organizing transfer messages each of which includes the created message management information and the status information, and transmitting the organized transfer messages sequentially.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of:

creating a component including information on a country to which an information system identifier applies, and incorporating the created component into the status information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the bus information includes at least one type of information among information on a route of a bus to arrive, predicted arrival time of the bus, and information on current location of the bus.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the information on the current location of the bus is information for identifying a bus stop or a section between two bus stops where the bus is currently located.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the information for identifying a bus stop is either a number sequentially assigned to bus stops pertaining to a bus route or an identifier uniquely assigned to each bus stop located within an area in which the public transportation information is serviced.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the information for identifying a section is one type of information among an identifier uniquely assigned to each section located within an area in which the public transportation information is serviced, a pair of numbers each of which is sequentially assigned to bus stops pertaining to a bus route, and a pair of identifiers each of which is uniquely assigned to each bus stop located within an area in which the public transportation information is serviced.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein an identifier of zero is assigned to the first component and an identifier of 0x88 is assigned to the second component.

10. An apparatus for encoding public transportation information, comprising:

an encoder for creating, for a bus stop, a first component containing number of buses to arrive at the bus stop and as many pieces of bus information as the number of buses to arrive, and for creating a second component including the first component and an identifier assigned to the bus stop; and

a frame organizer for organizing frames by adding error correction data to data containing the information created by the encoder.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the bus information includes at least one type of information among information on a route of a bus to arrive, predicted arrival time of the bus, and information on current location of the bus.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the information on the current location of the bus is information for identifying a bus stop or a section between two bus stops where the bus is currently located.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the encoder creates, for another bus stop other than the bus stop, a third component containing number of buses to arrive at the another bus stop and as many pieces of bus information as number of buses to arrive at the another bus stop, and incorporates the created third component along with an identifier for the another bus stop into the second component.

14. A method for decoding public transportation information, comprising:

extracting status information from a received signal;

extracting, from a component included in the extracted status information, at least one information element containing a bus stop identifier and a sub-component; and

extracting from the sub-component number of buses to arrive at a bus stop corresponding to the bus stop identifier and as many pieces of bus information as the number of buses to arrive.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

extracting from the received signal message management information containing creation time of the status information.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein each of transfer messages demodulated from the received signal includes the message management information and the status information.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein information extracted from the status information is interpreted based on an information system identifier contained in the component.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the bus information includes at least one type of information among information on a route of a bus to arrive, predicted arrival time of the bus, and information on current location of the bus.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the information on the current location of the bus is information for identifying a bus stop or a section between two bus stops where the bus is currently located.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the information for identifying a bus stop is either a number sequentially assigned to bus stops pertaining to a bus route or an identifier uniquely assigned to each bus stop located within an area in which the public transportation information is serviced.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the information for identifying a section is one type of information among an identifier uniquely assigned to each section located within an area in which the public transportation information is serviced, a pair of numbers each of which is sequentially assigned to bus stops pertaining to a bus route, and a pair of identifiers each of which is uniquely assigned to each bus stop located within an area in which the public transportation information is serviced.

22. The method of claim 14, wherein the component has an identifier set to 0x88 and the sub-component has an identifier set to zero.

23. An apparatus for decoding public transportation information, comprising:

a demodulator for demodulating a received signal to output a sequence of messages carrying public transportation information;

a decoder for extracting status information from each of the messages and extracting public transportation information from the status information while extracting at least one information element containing a bus stop identifier and a sub-component from a component contained in the status information, and for extracting number of buses to arrive at a bus stop corresponding to the bus stop identifier and as many pieces of bus information as the number of buses to arrive from the extracted sub-component; and

a controller for storing the extracted information in storage means and outputting the stored information or a part of the stored information via an output unit depending on a given condition.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising a location detector for detecting information on current location, wherein the controller stores static information of the extracted information in the storage means and stores dynamic information regarding only bus stops located near the current location in the storage means.

25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the bus information includes at least one type of information among information on a route of a bus to arrive, predicted arrival time of the bus, and information on current location of the bus.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the information on the current location of the bus is information for identifying a bus stop or a section between two bus stops where the bus is currently located.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the controller, responsive to a user'"'"'s request, outputs a list of bus stops through the output unit after reading information on bus stops from the storage mans, and outputs a predicted arrival time of each bus route passing a bus stop selected from the list of bus stops through the output means after reading the predicted arrival time from the storage means.

28. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the decoder further extracts from the component number of buses to arrive at another bus stop other than the bus stop corresponding to the extracted bus stop identifier and as many pieces of bus information as the number of buses to arrive at the another bus stop.

29. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the output unit presents the stored information or the part of the stored information visually or audibly.

30. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the decoder decodes the extracted public transportation information based on an information system identifier contained in the component.