Determining road traffic conditions using multiple data samples
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented method for providing information related to vehicle travel on roads, the method comprising:
- for each of one or more roads,obtaining a plurality of data samples of one or more types that reflect travel characteristics of vehicles traveling on the road during a period of time, the obtained data samples including multiple mobile data source data samples that are reported by one or more mobile devices moving along the road;
automatically assessing, by one or more programmed computing systems, the obtained data samples to identify a group of multiple data samples to represent actual vehicle travel on the road during the period of time, the identifying of the group including excluding any data samples that are identified as being unrepresentative of actual vehicle travel on the road;
automatically analyzing, by the one or more programmed computing systems, the identified group of multiple data samples to determine one or more estimated measurements of actual traffic flow during the period of time on the road; and
providing one or more indications of the determined estimated actual traffic flow measurements for use in facilitating travel on the road.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Techniques are described for assessing road traffic conditions in various ways based on obtained traffic-related data, such as data samples from vehicles and other mobile data sources traveling on the roads and/or from one or more other sources (such as physical sensors near to or embedded in the roads). The road traffic conditions assessment based on obtained data samples may include various filtering and/or conditioning of the data samples, and various inferences and probabilistic determinations of traffic-related characteristics of interest from the data samples. In some situations, the inferences include repeatedly determining current traffic flow characteristics and/or predicted future traffic flow characteristics for road segments of interest during time periods of interest, such as to determine average traffic speed, traffic volume and/or occupancy, and include weighting various data samples in various ways (e.g., based on a latency of the data samples and/or a source of the data samples).
183 Citations
27 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method for providing information related to vehicle travel on roads, the method comprising:
for each of one or more roads, obtaining a plurality of data samples of one or more types that reflect travel characteristics of vehicles traveling on the road during a period of time, the obtained data samples including multiple mobile data source data samples that are reported by one or more mobile devices moving along the road; automatically assessing, by one or more programmed computing systems, the obtained data samples to identify a group of multiple data samples to represent actual vehicle travel on the road during the period of time, the identifying of the group including excluding any data samples that are identified as being unrepresentative of actual vehicle travel on the road; automatically analyzing, by the one or more programmed computing systems, the identified group of multiple data samples to determine one or more estimated measurements of actual traffic flow during the period of time on the road; and providing one or more indications of the determined estimated actual traffic flow measurements for use in facilitating travel on the road. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium whose contents configure a computing device to provide information related to vehicle travel on a road, by performing a method comprising:
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receiving an indication of multiple data samples that reflect travel characteristics of one or more vehicles traveling on one or more roads, the multiple data samples including information reported by one or more mobile devices on the one or more roads at one or more times; automatically analyzing the multiple data samples to determine one or more estimated measurements of traffic conditions on at least one of the one or more roads during a period of time, the automatic analyzing being performed by the configured computing device; and providing one or more indications of the determined estimated traffic conditions measurements. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A computing device configured to provide information related to vehicle travel on a road, comprising:
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a processor; a first module configured to, when executed by the processor, and for one or more roads and each of multiple periods of time, automatically analyze multiple data samples that reflect vehicles traveling on the one or more roads during the period of time in order to determine one or more estimated measurements of traffic conditions on at least one of the one or more roads during the period of time, the multiple data samples including at least one data sample based on information reported by one or more mobile devices moving along the one or more roads during the period of time; and a second module configured to, when executed by the processor, provide one or more indications of at least some of the determined estimated traffic conditions measurements. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27)
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Specification