JP2001188987A - Traffic congestion information generation system and on-vehicle unit - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a traffic congestion information generation system which can accurately grasp the tail of congestion without increasing fixed-point observing facilities for a traffic state. SOLUTION: A beacon 84 gathers the position on a road where a vehicle approaches a precedent vehicle and stops at a distance to a following vehicle from the on-vehicle unit of the traveling vehicle and a congestion information processor 81 estimates the tail of congestion according to the gathered information. Accurate congestion information can be presented without expanding an infrastructure system.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for generating traffic congestion information and an on-vehicle device that plays a role in generating congestion information. In particular, information indicating the end of congestion is generated using information from the on-vehicle device. It is made possible.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, various techniques have been developed to support safe and smooth running of vehicles, and maintenance of infrastructure systems has been advanced.

[0003] Navigation devices mounted on vehicles are:
It is possible to provide a means for measuring the position of the vehicle and to display the current position on a map on a screen to assist a driver on an unfamiliar road.

[0004] Further, a system for measuring the distance between the vehicle in front of and behind the vehicle and providing a warning when the vehicle is too close to the vehicle in front of and behind the vehicle to alert the driver is also put into practical use. Have been.

[0005] Further, equipment for measuring the traffic volume and the vehicle occupancy on the road has been added, and the traffic congestion information obtained from these measurements is transmitted to the on-vehicle device through FM broadcasting or a beacon capable of two-way communication. An information providing system to provide information has also been constructed.

In order to smoothly provide such information, road data for assigning node numbers and link numbers to road networks nationwide has been developed, and intersections (nodes) have been developed.
And roads (links) can be uniquely specified using node numbers and link numbers.

As shown in FIG. 5, the traffic volume and the vehicle occupancy are measured by ultrasonic sensors 72, 73, 74 installed near the intersection. This ultrasonic sensor is located at a point 300 m (72), 500 m (73) and 1
Maintenance is underway with the goal of installation at a point (74) of 000 m, and measurement data of these sensors is collected at a center to generate congestion information.

[0008]

However, there is a limit in estimating the end of a traffic jam from fixed point observation information of an ultrasonic sensor installed at a fixed position, and therefore, accurate information on the length of the traffic jam is provided. Difficult to do. To reduce errors in traffic length information, it is necessary to install ultrasonic sensors more closely, but this requires a lot of cost. Even on roads where sensors are installed at three points from the intersection, it is difficult to increase the number of ultrasonic sensors under the current situation where the number is small.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention solves the above-mentioned conventional problems. The end of a traffic jam can be accurately grasped without increasing the number of fixed-point observation positions of traffic conditions, and traffic error information with a small error is presented. It is an object of the present invention to provide a traffic congestion information generation system capable of performing such traffic congestion information, and to provide a vehicle-mounted device used for generating the traffic congestion information.

[0010]

According to the traffic congestion information generation system of the present invention, stop position information and inter-vehicle distance information to a preceding vehicle and a rear vehicle when the vehicle is stopped are collected from the vehicle, and based on the collected information. Estimates the end of traffic jams.

An on-vehicle device for providing information on a running vehicle through a beacon includes a vehicle position measuring means for measuring a vehicle position from GPS reception information and information such as a vehicle speed sensor, and a distance between the front vehicles mounted on the vehicle. An inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit that measures the inter-vehicle distance to the front vehicle and the rear vehicle from the information of the detection unit and the rear inter-vehicle distance detection unit, and a data recording unit that records measurement data by the own vehicle position measurement unit and the inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit. Transmission / reception means for transmitting the data recorded in the data recording means to the beacon is provided, and the measurement data of the vehicle position measuring means and the inter-vehicle distance monitoring means when the vehicle speed sensor indicates the speed 0 is recorded in the data recording means. It is configured so that:

Therefore, it is possible to present accurate congestion information without expanding the infrastructure system.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS In a traffic jam information generating system according to an embodiment of the present invention, an on-vehicle device mounted on a vehicle records a position of the own vehicle when the vehicle stops on a road, and a distance between a vehicle ahead and a distance behind a vehicle. Then, this information is transmitted to the center through the beacon. At the center, based on information obtained from the on-board unit,
When the distance between the front vehicles is short and the distance between the rear vehicles is long,
The position where the state corresponding to the end of the congestion has occurred is determined, and the length of the congestion is estimated.

As shown in FIG. 1, this system includes a traffic congestion information processing device 81 for generating traffic congestion information, an information providing central device 82 for providing the generated traffic congestion information, a distribution of information to be transmitted to a beacon, and a An information providing device 83 that collects the information of the vehicle, a beacon 84 installed on the road, and an in-vehicle device that performs two-way communication with the beacon 84 when the vehicle passes under the beacon 84. The beacon 84 is installed, for example, at the position of the intersection 84 shown in FIG.

The vehicle-mounted device transmits the end information of the traffic jam to the beacon 84. The information providing device (subsystem) 83 transmits the traffic jam end information collected by each beacon 84 to the traffic jam information processing device (center system) 81. The traffic congestion information processing device (center system) 81 estimates the traffic congestion end of the route from the number of passing vehicles and the occupancy information collected from the vehicle detector and the traffic congestion information collected from the vehicle through the beacon 84, and generates traffic congestion information. I do. Information provision central unit (center system) 82
Extracts and edits information to be provided according to the beacon installation position from the traffic jam information collected from the traffic jam information processing device 81,
The information is transmitted to the information providing device 83. The information providing device (sub system) 83 distributes the traffic jam information transmitted from the information providing central device 82 to the respective beacons 84, and the beacon 84 transmits the traffic jam information to the vehicle-mounted device.

As shown in FIG. 3, a vehicle equipped with an on-vehicle device has a GPS information receiving section 1 for receiving information from a GPS satellite, a gyro 2 for detecting a bearing in a running direction, and a vehicle speed sensor for detecting a vehicle speed. 3, a map data storage unit 7 for holding map data, a front inter-vehicle distance sensor 4 for detecting an inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle, and a rear inter-vehicle distance sensor 5 for detecting an inter-vehicle distance to a rear vehicle. , Onboard equipment 6
The detection signals of the own vehicle position identification unit 61 for identifying the current position of the vehicle from the information of the GPS information receiving unit 1, the gyro 2, the vehicle speed sensor 3, and the map data, and the detection signals of the front inter-vehicle distance sensor 4 and the rear inter-vehicle distance sensor 5 An inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit 63 that measures the inter-vehicle distance before and after, a data storage unit 64 that records data to be transmitted to the beacon 84, a transmission and reception unit 65 that performs transmission and reception with the beacon 84, and congestion information received from the beacon 84 And a control unit 62 for controlling each unit.
And

The front inter-vehicle distance sensor 4 and the rear inter-vehicle distance sensor 5 are provided with an ultrasonic transmission / reception device for detecting a distance by using an ultrasonic wave, a radar for detecting a distance by using a radio wave, or by processing a photographed image. It is composed of a camera that detects distance.

The vehicle position identification unit 61 of the on-vehicle device 6 detects the vehicle position from the information of the GPS information receiving unit 1, the gyro 2 and the vehicle speed sensor 3, compares it with the map data, and determines whether the vehicle is currently running. The number of the link and the distance from the end of the link are calculated.

The inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit 63 detects the distance to the front vehicle and the distance to the rear vehicle from the information of the front inter-vehicle distance sensor 4 and the rear inter-vehicle distance sensor 5.

When the vehicle speed sensor 3 indicates the speed 0, the control unit 62 obtains the inter-vehicle distance between the front vehicle and the rear vehicle from the inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit 63, and the inter-vehicle distance with the front vehicle is shorter than the threshold value l1, and When the inter-vehicle distance to the rear vehicle is longer than the threshold value l2, the inter-vehicle distance between the front vehicle and the rear vehicle measured by the inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit 63 is stored in the data storage unit 64. Is stored in the data storage unit 64 with the calculated link number and the distance from the link end.

Thus, as shown in FIG. 4, the data storage section 64 stores "link number at 0 speed", "distance from link end at 0 speed", "distance from vehicle in front", and "vehicle in rear". Distance "is recorded.

The transmission / reception unit 65 of the vehicle-mounted device 6 includes a
When passing through the communication area with the beacon 84, a signal from the beacon 84 is received, and the data stored in the data storage unit 64 is transmitted to the beacon 84. At this time, traffic information is received from the beacon 84 and displayed on the traffic information display unit 66.

FIG. 2 shows a procedure for generating congestion information in the congestion information processing device 81 that has collected information from the vehicle-mounted device 6.

Step 1: The collected congestion end information is classified for each link number. Step 2: The congestion end information of each link number is sorted in ascending order of the distance from the link end. The distance x from the link end represents the distance from the point where the speed becomes 0 to the intersection ahead in the traveling direction.

Step 3: The distance to the preceding vehicle and the distance to the following vehicle are checked in order from the traffic jam end information having the shortest distance from the link end, and the distance to the preceding vehicle is determined by the system set value L.
Congestion end information is extracted for a plurality of vehicles that are equal to or less than 1 (<l1) and the distance to the following vehicle is equal to or greater than the system set value L2 (> l2).

Step 4: Estimate the end position of the congestion by smoothing the distance from the link end in the extracted plurality of end information of the congestion, and estimate the end position of the congestion. Step 5: Check the congestion information calculated from the sensor and the end information of the congestion. From the traffic jam information.

Thus, when the vehicle approaches the preceding vehicle,
The end of the congestion can be estimated based on the vehicle position when the vehicle stops at a distance from the vehicle behind.

[0028]

As is apparent from the above description, the traffic congestion information generation system of the present invention generates accurate traffic congestion information by combining data obtained from the infrastructure system and data obtained from the vehicle-mounted device. And can be provided.

In this system, it is not necessary to dedicate much effort to maintenance and expansion of the infrastructure, so that a low-cost system can be constructed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a traffic jam information generation system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the traffic jam information generation system of the embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the vehicle-mounted device of the embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a data structure stored in a data storage unit of the vehicle-mounted device according to the embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a situation where a detector and a beacon are installed at an intersection.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 GPS information receiving unit 2 Gyro 3 Vehicle speed sensor 4 Front inter-vehicle distance sensor 5 Back inter-vehicle distance sensor 6 On-board unit 7 Map data storage unit 61 Own vehicle position identification unit 62 Control unit 63 Inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit 64 Data storage unit 65 Transmission / reception unit 66 Traffic congestion information display section 72, 73, 74 Ultrasonic detector 81 Traffic congestion information processing device 82 Information providing central device 83 Information providing device 84 Beacon

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A system for generating and providing congestion information, comprising: collecting stop position information and inter-vehicle distance information from a vehicle to a preceding vehicle and a rear vehicle when the vehicle is at a stop; A traffic jam information generation system characterized by estimating the end. 2. An on-vehicle device for performing communication between an inter-vehicle distance detecting means for detecting an inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle and a following vehicle, an own vehicle position measuring means for measuring an own vehicle position, and a beacon. The traffic congestion information generation system according to claim 1, wherein the information is collected from a vehicle through a beacon. 3. The information collected from each vehicle is sorted in ascending order of the distance from the stop position to the intersection, and in the sorting order, the inter-vehicle distance to the front vehicle is equal to or less than the set value L1 and the inter-vehicle distance to the rear vehicle is determined. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of pieces of information having a distance equal to or greater than a set value L2 are extracted, and a stop position of the plurality of pieces of extracted information is smoothed to estimate the end of a traffic jam.
Or the traffic jam information generation system according to 2. 4. An on-vehicle device for storing a stop position of a vehicle and an inter-vehicle distance to a preceding vehicle and a following vehicle when the vehicle stops, and transmitting the information to a beacon. Self-vehicle position measuring means for measuring the position; inter-vehicle distance monitoring means for measuring the inter-vehicle distance to the front and rear vehicles from information of the front and rear inter-vehicle distance detection means mounted on the vehicle; A data recording unit for recording data measured by the vehicle position measuring unit and the inter-vehicle distance monitoring unit; and a transmitting / receiving unit for transmitting data recorded in the data recording unit to a beacon. An on-vehicle device in which measurement data of the own vehicle position measuring means and the inter-vehicle distance monitoring means when 0 is indicated are recorded. 5. The vehicle position measuring means according to claim 4, wherein, as the vehicle position, a link number of a road on which the vehicle is located and a distance from the link end of the position are obtained. The in-vehicle device described.