Road information provision system, road information provision apparatus, and road information generation method

• US 7,747,381 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2008
• Issued: 06/29/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Adachi, Shinya
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, TAN QUANG
• Application Number:
  US12/048,630
• Publication Number:
  US 20080215233A1
• Time in Patent Office: 837 Days
• Field of Search: 701/118, 701/117, 701/119, 701/201, 701/209, 701/208.1, 701/211, 340/905, 340/933, 340/995.13, 342/357.1, 455/186.1, 455/45, 382/243
• US Class Current: 701/118
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3691 Retrieval, searching and output of information related to real-time traffic, weather, or environmental conditions arrangements for giving variable traffic instructions G08G1/09
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0104 Measuring and analyzing of parameters relative to traffic conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096716 where the received information does not generate an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096758 where no selection takes place on the transmitted or the received information
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096791 where the origin of the information is another vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096827 where the route is computed onboard
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096872 where instructions are given per voice

Abstract

An object of the invention is to provide a traffic information provision system which can arbitrarily set a position resolution and a traffic representation resolution and flexibly support a traffic information prediction service. The traffic information provision system of the invention quantizes the state quantity of traffic information changing along a road, converts said quantized state quantity to a value having statistical deviation, performs encoding of said value, and provides the encoded value to traffic information utilization apparatus such as a car navigation system. The traffic information utilization apparatus decodes said encoded state quantity to reproduce the traffic information on said road.

Claims

1. A road information provision apparatus comprising:

a sampling point setting unit for setting sampling points along a road from a reference point of a road section specified by road section reference data with constant intervals;

a calculating unit for calculating state quantities of traffic information changing along the road in the road section for the sampling points based on original measurement information;

a traffic information converting unit for converting the calculated state of quantities of the traffic information for the sampling points to values concentrated around a specific value; and

an encoding unit for encoding and compressing the values obtained by the conversion.

2. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the state quantities include any one of a travel speed, a travel time and a congestion situation.

3. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the compression unit compresses the state quantities by transforming the state quantities to a coefficient value of a frequency component by way of orthogonal transformation.

4. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the compression unit compresses the state quantities by deleting values of high frequency components.

5. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the road information provision apparatus is one of a probe-car-mounted machine and a navigation system mounted on a vehicle.

6. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the road information provision apparatus is a center-side apparatus providing traffic information.

7. A road information utilizing apparatus for reproducing, on a digital map, the state quantities of the traffic information transmitted from the road information provision apparatus according to claim 1.

8. A road information provision apparatus comprising:

a sampling point setting unit for setting sampling points by dividing a road section specified by road section reference data with constant intervals along a road;

a calculating unit for calculating state quantities of traffic information changing along the road in the road section for the sampling points based on original measurement information;

a traffic information converting unit for converting the calculated state quantities of the traffic information for the sampling points to values concentrated around a specific value; and

an encoding unit for encoding and compressing the values obtained by the conversion.

9. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the state quantities include any one of a travel speed, a travel time and a congestion situation.

10. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the compression unit compresses the state quantities by transforming the state quantities to a coefficient value of a frequency component by way of orthogonal transformation.

11. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the compression unit compresses the state quantities by deleting values of high frequency components.

12. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the road information provision apparatus is one of a probe-car-mounted machine and a navigation system mounted on a vehicle.

13. The road information provision apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the road information provision apparatus is a center-side apparatus providing traffic information.

14. A road information utilizing apparatus for reproducing, on a digital map, the state quantities of the traffic information transmitted from the road information provision apparatus according to claim 8.

15. A road information provision method comprising:

setting sampling points along a road from a reference point of a road section specified by road section reference data with constant intervals;

calculating state quantities of traffic information changing along the road in the road section for the sampling points based on original measurement information;

converting the calculated state quantities of the traffic information for the sampling points to values concentrated around a particular value; and

encoding and compressing the values obtained by the conversion.

16. A computer readable recording medium storing a program which causes a computer to execute the method according to claim 15.

17. A road information provision method comprising:

setting sampling points by-dividing a road section specified by road section reference data with constant intervals along a road;

calculating state quantities of traffic information changing along the road in the road section for the sampling points based on original measurement information;

converting the calculated state quantities of the traffic information for the sampling points to values concentrated around a specific value; and

encoding and compressing the values obtained by the conversion.

18. A computer readable recording medium storing a program which causes a computer to execute the method according to claim 17.