JP2005332263A - Method and system for emergency vehicle notification - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reliably perform information notification of approach of an emergency vehicle with a small burden without making a user purchase an exclusive receiver or the like. <P>SOLUTION: The information notification of approach of the emergency vehicle 50 is made to a communications terminal 100 belonging to a predetermined radio communication network 30 that enables individual calling. Location information of the emergency vehicle and communication terminal is acquired, and the communication terminal in the vicinity of location of the emergency vehicle is determined on the basis of the acquired location information. The determined communications terminal is called by using the radio communication network 30, and the approach of emergency vehicle is notified. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an emergency vehicle notification method and an emergency vehicle notification system to which the notification method is applied, and more particularly to a technique suitable for application to a mobile phone system.

  An emergency vehicle such as an ambulance or a police vehicle travels by sounding a siren or the like to notify the surrounding vehicles of the approach of the emergency vehicle. However, since there may be a situation where the notification of approaching an emergency vehicle is not complete only by such a process of sounding a siren, a system for notifying the approach of an emergency vehicle by various methods has been proposed.

  For example, in Patent Document 1, an emergency vehicle transmits a signal of a specific frequency, and a dedicated receiving device installed in a general vehicle causes the signal of the specific frequency to be received. Based on the above, it is proposed to detect and notify the approach of an emergency vehicle.

Further, in Patent Document 2, an emergency vehicle is equipped with a broadcaster of a system called VICS (road traffic information communication system), and the broadcaster broadcasts information for notifying the approach of an emergency vehicle, There has been proposed a vehicle equipped with a VICS receiver so that an emergency vehicle can be approached.
JP-A-9-267705 (FIG. 1) JP 2000-172988 A (FIG. 1)

  However, in any of the systems described in Patent Documents 1 and 2, it is necessary to provide a dedicated receiver for detecting the approach of an emergency vehicle in a general vehicle. There is a problem that the burden is large, and there is little possibility of being put to practical use. As described in Patent Document 2, when a VICS receiver is used, it seems that a general-purpose VICS receiver can be used at first glance. Since it is necessary to receive emergency vehicle approach information that is not prepared in the VICS system, it is difficult to use the existing VICS receiver as it is. In that case, the emergency vehicle approach information is received. A dedicated receiver that can be processed is required.

  An object of the present invention is to enable notification of approach information of an emergency vehicle to be reliably performed with a small burden without causing a user to purchase a dedicated receiver or the like.

  The present invention is configured to notify a communication terminal belonging to a predetermined wireless communication system that can be individually called that an emergency vehicle has approached, the position information of the emergency vehicle and the position information of the communication terminal And determining a communication terminal in the vicinity of the position of the emergency vehicle based on the acquired position information, making a call using the wireless communication system to the determined communication terminal, and approaching the emergency vehicle It is a notification.

  By doing in this way, the user who possesses the communication terminal which belongs to the radio | wireless communications system in which an individual call is possible will come to know that there exists an emergency vehicle by having the call.

  According to the present invention, by possessing a communication terminal belonging to a wireless communication system that can be individually called, such as a mobile phone terminal, it can be seen that there is an emergency vehicle approaching the call to the communication terminal. Without preparing a receiver for emergency vehicle approach detection, it becomes possible to notify the approach of emergency vehicles to many general vehicles and pedestrians, which may cause secondary accidents due to emergency vehicle travel Can be effectively reduced.

  In this case, when the communication terminal is called, by notifying the position of the emergency vehicle approached by predetermined data communication such as e-mail, the data communication function provided in the communication terminal can be used to Details can be notified.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of the overall system configuration of this example. In this example, the present invention is applied to a radio communication network system configured by a mobile phone system, and a plurality of radio base stations 31, 32,... The mobile phone terminal 100 performs wireless communication with the mobile phone terminal 100 in the service area composed of 31, 32,..., Makes a call with a partner connected via a telephone line, or transmits or transmits e-mail data. Receive or connect to the Internet.

  A specific configuration example of the mobile phone terminal 100 will be described later. In addition to the basic communication function as such a mobile phone terminal, the mobile phone terminal 100 that performs the processing of this example has a position positioning function. I have. Specifically, it has a receiving function for a positioning system called GPS (global positioning system), receives signals transmitted from a plurality of GPS satellites 40, and The current position of the mobile phone terminal 100 is measured from the reception state. Note that when performing positioning, all calculations necessary for positioning may be performed in the mobile phone terminal 100, but calculation processing is performed in some positioning calculation center connected to the wireless communication network 30, You may make it return a positioning result to the mobile telephone terminal 100. FIG.

  The emergency vehicle 50 is also equipped with a wireless communication device (not shown) having the same configuration as that of the mobile phone terminal 100, can communicate via the wireless communication network 30, and uses a GPS system. It also has a current positioning function. Instead of mounting the dedicated wireless communication device on the emergency vehicle 50, the mobile phone terminal 100 registered in advance for the emergency vehicle may be mounted.

  The management center 20 that manages the wireless communication network 30 includes a terminal data storage unit 21 that holds terminal data, and is installed in an emergency vehicle 50 in a mobile phone terminal (a terminal here) that is subscribed to the network. The terminal data storage unit 21 stores data indicating which base station is in a service area where wireless communication is possible (including wireless communication devices). The storage of data in the terminal data storage unit 21 is performed by a location registration process from the terminal. Further, as will be described below, the detailed location data of each mobile phone terminal transferred from the GPS database 10 and the detailed location data of the emergency vehicle 50 traveling in an emergency state are also stored in the terminal data storage unit 21. To do.

  In addition to the management center 20, the GPS database 10 is connected to the wireless communication network 30, collects position data measured by the terminal 100 having a position positioning function, and holds the terminal data storage unit 11. . As data held in the terminal data storage unit 11, for example, as shown in FIG. 3, the position data of the terminal 100 belonging to this network is stored for each terminal ID. The data held by the terminal data storage unit 11 of the GPS database 10 is sent to the management center 20 as needed, and is held by the terminal data storage unit 21 in the management center 20. In FIG. 1, the GPS database 10 is an example configured separately from the management center 20. However, the management center 20 may include a GPS database.

  Next, a configuration example of the mobile phone terminal 100 of this example will be described with reference to FIG. The cellular phone terminal 100 of this example includes a wireless communication RF unit 110 and a GPS RF unit 120 for performing wireless communication with a base station as communication means. The radio communication RF unit 110 includes a transmission / reception sharing unit 112 to which an antenna 111 is connected, a reception unit 113 that processes a signal received by the antenna 111, and a transmission unit 114 that processes a signal transmitted from the antenna 111. The radio communication RF unit 110 is connected to the control unit 130 and supplies the data received by the reception unit 113 to the control unit 130 side, and also supplies data to be transmitted to the transmission unit 114 from the control unit 130 side.

  Input data is supplied to the control unit 130 from an input unit 131 such as an operation key, a microphone, and various input terminals arranged in the mobile phone terminal 100. The control unit 130 also performs display control of a liquid crystal display panel (LCD) 132 that displays characters, numbers, images, and the like, output control from the speaker unit 133, and light emission control of a light emitting diode (LED) 134 that notifies incoming calls. And do. Note that a memory 135 is connected to the control unit 130, and the control unit 130 controls various operations based on a program (software) stored in the memory 135.

  The RF unit 120 for GPS of the mobile phone terminal 100 has a GPS antenna 121 connected to the receiving unit 122, receives a GPS signal transmitted from the satellite 40 (FIG. 1), obtains received data, The received data is sent to the control unit 130. The control unit 130 performs positioning calculation processing based on the reception data supplied from the GPS RF unit 120 and calculates the current position. As already described, when the positioning calculation is performed based on the data received by the GPS RF unit 120, the control unit 130 in the mobile phone terminal 100 performs all the calculations necessary for the positioning. However, the received data may be sent to some positioning calculation center connected to the wireless communication network 30 to perform the positioning calculation process, and the positioning result may be returned to the mobile phone terminal 100.

  The cellular phone terminal 100 of this example performs positioning based on the received data at the GPS RF unit 120 as needed, displays the current position and the like on the LCD 132 in the terminal 100, and determines the positioning. The current data of the current position is sent to the GPS database 10 via the network 30. In the GPS database 10, the terminal data storage unit 11 holds the transmitted position data.

  Next, processing when an emergency vehicle travels in the system of this example will be described. As already described, the data held by the terminal data storage unit 11 in the GPS database 10 is the current position data of each mobile phone terminal as shown in FIG. 3, and the terminal data storage unit 21 in the management center 20. In addition, the current position data of each mobile phone terminal shown in FIG. 3 is held. Here, when the emergency vehicle 50 of the present example shown in FIG. 1 starts traveling in an emergency state, the terminal data storage unit 11 in the GPS database 10 and the terminal data storage unit 21 in the management center 20 store, for example, FIG. As shown in FIG. 2, the traveling position data of the emergency vehicle 50 is accumulated.

  In the management center 20, when the travel position data of the emergency vehicle 50 is registered in the terminal data storage unit 21, the communication control means in the management center 20 performs a process of calling a nearby mobile phone terminal. The flowchart of FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the calling process of the mobile phone terminal. First, when it is determined that the emergency travel start information of the emergency vehicle 50 has been received from the GPS database 10 (step S11), the current position of the emergency vehicle 50 and the current terminal position stored in the terminal data storage unit 21 Are compared to find a terminal in which the position near the current position of the emergency vehicle 50 is registered as the current position as a candidate terminal (step S12). The vicinity of the current position of the emergency vehicle 50 is, for example, a mobile phone terminal registered within the range of a radius of about 100 m as the current position with the current position of the emergency vehicle as the center is determined as a nearby terminal. It should be noted that the mobile phone terminal in a position state that is determined from the change in the position of the emergency vehicle as well as the travel direction and is determined to be behind the current position when viewed from the travel direction is in the vicinity of the current travel position. May be excluded from candidate terminals.

  In step S12, it is determined whether or not there is a candidate terminal (ie, a terminal that needs to be called) (step S13). If there is no candidate terminal, the process returns to step S12 to return the emergency vehicle. The current position (running position) is compared with the terminal position again. If it is determined in step S13 that there is a candidate terminal (that is, a terminal that needs to be called) in the process in step S12, call processing is performed from the management center for all the terminals that are candidates. (Step S14).

  The terminal called from the management center performs the same incoming call processing as when a normal telephone call is received (or mail is received). Specifically, for example, a ring tone is output from the speaker unit 133, and the light emitting diode 134 is caused to emit light for incoming call notification. The display panel 132 displays that the incoming call is from the management center. As an indication of the incoming call from the management center, the display panel 132 displays that the incoming call is from a specific telephone number predetermined for emergency vehicle approach notification on the center side, and the terminal is held. Notifying the user who is approaching the emergency vehicle. Further, instead of outputting a normal ring tone from the speaker unit 133, an emergency vehicle approach may be output from the speaker unit 133 by voice.

  Alternatively, an e-mail with a title (subject) such as “emergency vehicle approach” may be sent from the center side, and the e-mail title may be displayed on the display panel 132 of the terminal. In that case, detailed data of the emergency vehicle such as the detailed travel position of the emergency vehicle and the type of the vehicle (a distinction between an ambulance, a fire engine, a police car, etc.) may be sent in the body of the email. Further, even when a call is made when a normal incoming call is received, the emergency vehicle detailed data may be sent to the calling terminal immediately after the call by e-mail.

  Returning to the description of the flowchart of FIG. 5, after performing the calling process in step S <b> 14, the communication control means on the center side determines whether or not the emergency vehicle continues to travel (step S <b> 15) and continues. If yes, the process returns to step S12. If the travel of the emergency vehicle is not continued (that is, when the travel is stopped), the stop of the travel of the emergency vehicle is confirmed (step S16), and the process is stopped.

  Note that transmission of terminal position data and emergency vehicle travel data from the GPS database 10 to the management center 20 is executed by the processing shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, for example. That is, for the terminal location data, as shown in FIG. 6, the terminal location information notification 101 is periodically sent from the GPS database 10 to the management center 20 and stored in the terminal data storage unit 21 in the management center 20. The detailed position information update process 101 is performed.

  In addition, as shown in FIG. 7, when emergency vehicle travel is detected in the GPS database 10, emergency vehicle travel data is transmitted 201 from the GPS database 10 to the management center 20, and the emergency vehicle travel data is transmitted. When 201 is detected by the communication control means in the management center 20, the calling process 202 at the time of passing through the emergency vehicle described in the flowchart of FIG. 5 is performed. Thereafter, when there is an emergency vehicle position information transmission 203, the vehicle position corresponding to the transmitted position is updated, and a call process 204 corresponding to the updated position is performed. Thereafter, when there is further transmission 205 of emergency vehicle travel stop information, the calling process by the travel of the emergency vehicle is stopped.

  In this way, by being able to notify the approach of an emergency vehicle by calling processing using a mobile phone terminal, the user can know the approach of an emergency vehicle simply by possessing the mobile phone terminal. A vehicle or a pedestrian can be notified, and the possibility of a secondary accident occurring due to the traveling of an emergency vehicle can be effectively reduced. In particular, there is no need to prepare a special emergency vehicle approach detection receiver or the like, and the user only has to have a mobile phone terminal having a positioning function, which has the effect of reducing the burden on the user.

  In addition, by sending details such as e-mails to notify details regarding the travel of the emergency vehicle, details such as the location of the emergency vehicle are known to the user in the vicinity of the emergency vehicle, for example, a user possessing a terminal When it is determined that the emergency car siren is ringing in the vicinity, it is convenient to know from which direction it comes from the mail data sent to the terminal.

  In the above-described embodiment, the present invention is applied to a wireless communication system including a mobile phone system. However, any wireless communication network system capable of individually calling communication terminals can be used for other wireless communication systems. Applicable.

  In the above-described embodiment, the position of the terminal or emergency vehicle is measured using the GPS system. However, the position of the terminal or emergency vehicle may be measured (determined) by other methods. Good. For example, in the case of a mobile phone terminal, the approximate current position may be detected from the reception status of radio waves from the base station, but the approximate position detected in this way is registered on the center side. May be.

It is explanatory drawing which showed the system configuration example by one embodiment of this invention. It is the block diagram which showed the structural example of the communication terminal by one embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which showed the example of the positional information and terminal ID by one embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which showed the example of the data at the time of emergency vehicle passage by one embodiment of this invention. It is the flowchart which showed the example of a terminal call process at the time of emergency vehicle passing by one embodiment of this invention. It is the sequence diagram which showed the example of the normal time by one embodiment of this invention. It is the sequence diagram which showed the example at the time of emergency vehicle passage by one embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... GPS database, 11 ... Terminal data storage part, 20 ... Management center, 21 ... Terminal data storage part, 30 ... Wireless communication network, 31, 32 ... Wireless base station, 40 ... Satellite for GPS, 50 ... Emergency vehicle, 100 ... mobile phone terminal, 110 ... wireless communication RF unit, 120 ... RF unit for GPS, 130 ... control unit

Claims (4)

An emergency vehicle notification method for notifying that an emergency vehicle has approached a communication terminal belonging to a predetermined wireless communication system capable of individual calling,
Obtaining the location information of the emergency vehicle and the location information of the communication terminal;
Based on the acquired position information, determine a communication terminal near the position of the emergency vehicle,
An emergency vehicle notification method of making a call using the wireless communication system to the determined communication terminal to notify an approach of an emergency vehicle. The emergency vehicle notification method according to claim 1,
An emergency vehicle notification method of notifying a position of an emergency vehicle approached by predetermined data communication when a communication terminal is called using the wireless communication system. An emergency vehicle notification system for notifying that an emergency vehicle has approached a communication terminal belonging to a predetermined wireless communication system capable of individual calling,
As a center of the wireless communication system,
Emergency vehicle information holding means for holding position information of the emergency vehicle;
Communication terminal information holding means for holding position information of a communication terminal in the wireless communication system;
Communication control for determining the communication terminal in the vicinity of the position of the emergency vehicle indicated by the information held in the emergency vehicle information holding unit from the information in the communication terminal information holding unit and calling the communication terminal determined to be in the vicinity An emergency vehicle notification system comprising means. The emergency vehicle notification system according to claim 3,
The said communication control means notifies the position of the emergency vehicle which approached by the predetermined | prescribed data communication using the said radio | wireless communications system simultaneously with the call of the said communication terminal, or after a call.

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