TRAFFIC MONITORING SYSTEM AND METHOD
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention combines the geographical coverage possible with fixed, pre-defined route segment costs (e.g. the legal speed limit) with, wherever possible, richer time dependent costs. A user of, for example, a portable navigation device, can therefore continue route planning as before to virtually any destination in a country covered by the stored map database, but wherever possible, can also use traffic data with time-dependent costs, so that the effect of congestion with any time predictability can be accurately taken into account as an automatic, background process. It leaves the user to simply carry on driving, following the guidance offered by the navigation device, without needing to be concerned about congestion that exists now, and whether it will impact his journey.
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Citations
63 Claims
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1-56. -56. (canceled)
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57. A traffic monitoring system comprising a processing module arranged to process data representative of vehicles moving along roads in a designated geographical area, the roads being defined in a map database in terms of route segments, to measure traffic speed or transit time data as a function of time and to:
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generate a database of historical time-dependent traffic speeds or transit times for at least some route segments in the map database, the data associated with a route segment comprising an average traffic speed or transit time along the route segment for each of a plurality of time windows; identify currently congested route segments on which the current traffic speed or transit time is less than expected; and predict a traffic speed or transit time for a future time for at least one currently congested route segment based on a comparison of recently observed traffic speeds or transit times for the at least one segment with the historical average traffic speed or transit time for the appropriate time window, wherein said prediction comprises decaying the recently observed traffic speeds or transit times to the historical average traffic speed or transit time as the distance of the prediction into the future grows. - View Dependent Claims (58, 59)
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60. A computer-implemented method in which data representative of vehicles moving along roads in a designated geographical area, the roads being defined in a map database in terms of route segments, is processed by a processing module of a traffic monitoring system to measure traffic speed or transit time data as a function of time and to:
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generate a database of historical time-dependent traffic speeds or transit times for at least some route segments in the map database, the data associated with a route segment comprising an average traffic speed or transit time along the route segment for each of a plurality of time windows; identify currently congested route segments on which the current traffic speed or transit time is less than expected; and predict a traffic speed or transit time for a future time for at least one currently congested route segment based on a comparison of recently observed traffic speeds or transit times for the at least one segment with the historical average traffic speed or transit time for the appropriate time window, wherein said prediction comprises decaying the recently observed traffic speeds or transit times to the historical average traffic speed or transit time as the distance of the prediction into the future grows. - View Dependent Claims (61, 62, 63)
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Specification