METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRAFFIC INFORMATION CONVERSION USING TRAFFIC INFORMATION ELEMENT KNOWLEDGE BASE

• US 20110160986A1
• Filed: 11/09/2010
• Published: 06/30/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC China Co Ltd (NEC Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NEC China Co Ltd (NEC Corporation)
• Inventors: ZHANG, Weili, WU, Tao, LI, Chenghai, HU, Weisong, LIU, Xiaowei
• Granted Patent: US 8,700,295 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/117
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0962 having an indicator mounted inside the vehicle, e.g. giving voice messages
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0969 having a display in the form of a map

Abstract

A method and apparatus for conversion of traffic information based on traffic information element knowledge base are provided. According to the present invention, a road network is described using roads, intersections and sections as traffic information elements and a correspondence between these elements and a road topological network in a digital map is established, so that a universal traffic information describing model, which is compatible with language used in people'"'"'s daily life, can be established. Further, a traffic information element knowledge base can be generated based on the roads, intersections and sections, their respective attributes and the relationship between them, to support inter-conversion between road topological network traffic information and text-based traffic information. With the universal traffic information describing model and the traffic information element knowledge base according to the present invention, it is possible to support fusion and conversion for traffic data from various sources and to support various forms of presentation and interaction for traffic information, such as presentation of traffic information on digital navigation map, textual description of traffic information, map presentation of traffic information for urban trunk roads, interaction for natural language queries of traffic information, etc.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a traffic information describing model, comprising:

an extraction step of extracting predefined traffic information elements and their attributes from a road topological network, based on basic constituent elements of the road topological network;

a relationship determining step of determining the relationship between the extracted traffic information elements, based on the extracted traffic information elements and their attributes and correspondence between the traffic information elements and the basic constituent elements of the road topological network; and

a describing model establishment step of establishing the traffic information describing model corresponding to the road topological network with the extracted traffic information elements and their attributes and the determined relationship between the traffic information elements.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the basic constituent elements of the road topological network comprise paths and nodes formed by intersection of the paths, and wherein the predefined traffic information elements comprise roads, intersections and sections.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the extraction step further comprises:

a road name acquisition step of acquiring all the road names in the road topological network by traversing all of the paths each having a road name in the road topological network and incorporating any duplicate names;

a single-direction road extraction step of detecting, for each of the acquired road names, from the road topological network a sequence of consecutive paths passing along each of the travel directions of the road having the road name, as a single-direction road extracted along the travel direction, and naming the extracted single-direction road and any of unnamed paths belonging to the extracted single-direction road with the road name, to obtain the name attributes of the single-direction road;

an intersection extraction step of sequentially detecting, for each of the acquired road names, nodes at which each path in the sequence of paths having the road name intersects with paths having different road names, and obtaining the geographical areas at which the nodes are located as intersections, to extract all intersections on a single-direction road having the road name, and naming the extracted intersections to obtain the name attributes of the intersections; and

a section extraction step of acquiring, for each of the acquired road names, a road segment between every two neighboring intersections as a section, based on all of the extracted intersections on the single-direction road having the road name, to extract all sections on the single-direction road having the road name, and naming the extracted sections to obtain the name attributes of the sections.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein in the intersection extraction step, two or more extracted intersections are incorporated together if they are located in the same geographical location.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein in the relationship determining step, the relationship between the traffic information elements is determined by determining an entrance road, an exit road and a turn direction for each of turns at each intersection, determining a start intersection and an end intersection for each section, and determining all intersections and sections included in each single-direction road.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein in the describing model establishment step, the traffic information describing model corresponding to the road topological network is established with the extracted single-direction roads, sections and intersections and their respective name attributes, the determined relationship and the correspondence between, on one hand, the extracted single-direction roads, sections and intersections and, on the other hand, the paths and nodes.

7. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

a traffic information element name editing step of editing, if the obtained name of any traffic information element is incorrect or incompliant with a name used in people'"'"'s daily life, the name of the traffic information element to obtain the name attribute which is correct and compliant with the name used in people'"'"'s daily life.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising a knowledge base generation step of generating a traffic information element knowledge base by using the established traffic information describing model.

9. A method for converting between road topological network-based traffic information and text description-based traffic information,

when converting road topological network-based traffic information into text description-based traffic information, the method comprises:

a traffic information element matching step of retrieving, in a traffic information element knowledge base, names matched with names of respective paths in the road topological network-based traffic information, and obtaining traffic information elements corresponding to the matched names; and

a fusion step of fusing the traffic information of the respective paths based on correspondence between the obtained traffic information elements and the respective paths, to generate text description-based traffic information for the obtained traffic information elements;

when converting text description-based traffic information into road topological network-based traffic information, the method comprises;

a traffic information element matching step of retrieving, in a traffic information element knowledge base, names matched with names of roads and/or intersections in the text description-based traffic information, and obtaining traffic information elements corresponding to the matched names; and

a path determining step of determining paths corresponding to the obtained traffic information elements; and

a road topological network-based traffic information generating step of obtaining traffic information for the determined paths and generating the road topological network-based traffic information for the determined paths;

wherein the traffic information element knowledge base is generated by using a traffic information describing model established by a method for establishing a traffic information describing model according to claim 1.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the road topological network-based traffic information comprises travel speed and/or travel time and/or congestion indication for each of paths detected by a digital navigation map, and wherein the text description-based traffic information comprises text description of traffic conditions of the traffic information elements including roads, sections and intersections.

11. An apparatus for establishing a traffic information describing model, comprising:

an extraction unit for extracting predefined traffic information elements and their attributes from a road topological network, based on basic constituent elements of the road topological network;

a relationship determining unit for determining the relationship between the traffic information elements, based on the extracted traffic information elements and their attributes and correspondence between the traffic information elements and the basic constituent elements of the road topological network; and

a describing model establishment unit for establishing the traffic information describing model corresponding to the road topological network with the extracted traffic information elements and their attributes and the determined relationship between the traffic information elements.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the basic constituent elements of the road topological network comprise paths and nodes formed by intersection of the paths, and wherein the predefined traffic information elements comprise roads, intersections and sections.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the extraction unit further comprises:

a road name acquisition unit for acquiring all the road names on the road topological network by traversing all of the paths each having a road name in the road topological network and incorporating any duplicate names;

a single-direction road extraction unit for detecting, for each of the acquired road names, from the road topological network a sequence of consecutive paths passing along each of the travel directions of the road having the road name, as a single-direction road extracted along the travel direction, and naming the extracted single-direction road and any of unnamed paths belonging to the extracted single-direction road with the road name, to obtain the name attributes of the single-direction road;

an intersection extraction unit for sequentially detecting, for each of the acquired road names, nodes at which each path in the sequence of paths having the road name intersects with paths having different road names, and obtaining the geographical areas at which the nodes are located as intersections, to extract all intersections on a single-direction road having the road name, and naming the extracted intersections to obtain the name attributes of the intersections; and

a section extraction unit for acquiring, for each of the acquired road names, a road segment between every two neighboring intersections as a section, based on all of the extracted intersections on the single-direction road having the road name, to extract all sections on the single-direction road having the road name, and naming the extracted sections to obtain the name attributes of the sections.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the intersection extraction unit is configured to incorporate two or more extracted intersections together if they are located in the same geographical location.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the relationship determining unit determines the relationship between the traffic information elements by determining an entrance road, an exit road and a turn direction for each of turns at each intersection, determining a start intersection and an end intersection for each section, and determining all intersections and sections included in each single-direction road.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the describing model establishment unit establishes the traffic information describing model corresponding to the road topological network with the extracted single-direction roads, sections and intersections and their respective name attributes, the determined relationship and the correspondence between, on one hand, the extracted single-direction roads, sections and intersections and, on the other hand, the paths and nodes.

17. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising:

a traffic information element name editing unit for editing, if the obtained name of any traffic information element is incorrect or incompliant with a name used in people'"'"'s daily life, the name of the traffic information element to obtain the name attribute which is correct and compliant with the name used in people'"'"'s daily life.

18. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising a knowledge base generation unit for generating a traffic information element knowledge base by using the established traffic information describing model.

19. An apparatus for converting between road topological network-based traffic information and text description-based traffic information, comprising:

a section for converting road topological network-based traffic information into text description-based traffic information, comprising;

a traffic information element matching unit for retrieving, in a traffic information element knowledge base, names matched with names of respective paths in the road topological network-based traffic information, and obtaining traffic information elements corresponding to the matched names; and

a fusion unit for fusing the traffic information of the respective paths based on correspondence between the obtained traffic information elements and the respective paths, to generate text description-based traffic information for the obtained traffic information elements;

and

a section for converting text description-based traffic information into road topological network-based traffic information, comprising;

a traffic information element matching unit for retrieving, in a traffic information element knowledge base, names matched with names of roads and/or intersections in the text description-based traffic information, and obtaining traffic information elements corresponding to the matched names;

a path determining unit for determining paths corresponding to the obtained traffic information elements; and

a road topological network traffic information generating unit for obtaining traffic information for the determined paths and generating the road topological network-based traffic information for the determined paths;

wherein the traffic information element knowledge base is generated by using a traffic information describing model established by an apparatus for establishing a traffic information describing model according to claim 11.