JP2005345275A - Navigation device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To determine a road in the unusual congestion state, and to inform a driver of the state. <P>SOLUTION: The difference between a value acquired by expressing numerically the present congestion state of each road link and a value acquired by expressing numerically a past congestion state is calculated (step S50), and a road link in the furthermore congested state than usual and a road link in the furthermore uncrowded state than usual are determined based on the calculation result, to inform the driver of the determination result (step S70). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a navigation device mounted on a vehicle.

  Patent Document 1 discloses a navigation device that draws and displays traffic jam information on a map based on received VICS information.

JP 2003-14892 A

  However, in the conventional navigation device, since the current traffic jam situation is always displayed without considering the past traffic jam situation, the following problems have occurred. In other words, if a frequently used road has been frequently congested in the past, the driver may assume that it is still congested regardless of the current traffic congestion situation. In addition, if there are many vacant roads that are frequently used in the past, it may be assumed that the road is still vacant regardless of the current traffic congestion.

  The navigation apparatus according to claim 1 includes a traffic jam information acquisition unit that acquires traffic jam information, and a history storage unit that stores a history of traffic jam information in association with each road based on the traffic jam information acquired by the traffic jam information acquisition unit. A divergence degree calculating means for calculating a divergence degree between the current traffic jam information acquired by the traffic jam information acquiring means and the reference traffic jam information set based on the traffic jam information read from the history storage means, and a divergence degree calculation And means for notifying the driver of the degree of deviation calculated by the means.

  According to the present invention, the driver is notified of the degree of deviation between the current traffic jam information and the standard traffic jam information set based on the traffic jam information read from the history storage means. Thus, the driver can accurately grasp a road whose current traffic jam information is different from the past.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of a navigation apparatus according to the present invention. The navigation device 100 is mounted on a vehicle and detects a vehicle speed sensor 101 that detects the speed of the host vehicle, a GPS antenna 102 that receives a GPS signal from a GPS satellite and detects the current location of the host vehicle, and detects the traveling direction of the host vehicle. A vibration gyro 103, a VICS information receiving device 104 that receives VICS information including traffic jam information, a map database 105 that stores map data, a control device 106, a monitor 107, and a speaker 108. The map data is data representing roads with nodes and links. The nodes correspond to the intersections, and the line segments connecting the nodes correspond to the links. In this embodiment, each link is called a road link, and an identification code (road link ID) is assigned to each road link.

  The control device 106 includes a memory 106a that stores a history of past traffic conditions (congestion level). Then, by calculating the degree of divergence of the traffic jam situation based on the current traffic jam situation and the past traffic jam history, roads that are usually jammed but not currently jammed, and usually jammed Although there is no road that is currently congested, it is determined and the driver is notified via the monitor 107 and the speaker 108. Note that the current traffic jam status is based on traffic jam information received by the VICS information receiving device 104 and the vehicle speed of the host vehicle detected by the vehicle speed sensor 101, heavy traffic jam (5), traffic jam (4), and congestion (3). , It is determined by the rank (congestion degree) of five levels of smooth (2) and smooth (1). As a result, in addition to the traffic jam information obtained from the VICS information, the traffic jam status can be determined based on the actual running state of the host vehicle, and the traffic jam status is more accurate than when the traffic jam status is determined only from the VICS information. Can be determined.

  The vehicle speed of the host vehicle is calculated from a pulse signal from the vehicle speed sensor 101 every predetermined time, for example, every 5 seconds. In determining the traffic jam situation based on the vehicle speed of the host vehicle, the average speed in the road link that passed immediately before is calculated, and the calculated average speed is ranked according to the conditions shown in (A) to (E) below. Then, determine the traffic situation. The numbers in parentheses indicating the respective ranks are used as rank values when calculating the difference in the traffic jam situation in the traffic jam situation difference calculation process described later.

(A) Heavy traffic jam (5)
When the average speed of the road link that has passed immediately before is 0.5 (km / h) or more and less than 10 (km / h), the traffic status of the road link is determined to be a heavy traffic jam (5).
(B) Traffic jam (4)
When the average speed of the road link that has passed immediately before is 10 (km / h) or more and less than 20 (km / h), the traffic status of the road link is determined as traffic jam (4).
(C) Congestion (3)
When the average speed of the road link that has passed immediately before is 20 (km / h) or more and less than 40 (km / h), the traffic congestion state of the road link is determined as congested (3).
(D) Smooth (2)
When the average speed of the road link passed immediately before is 40 (km / h) or more and less than 50 (km / h), it is determined that the traffic condition of the road link is smooth (2).
(E) Smooth (1)
When the average speed of the road link passed immediately before is 50 (km / h) or more, the traffic congestion state of the road link is determined to be good (1).

  Further, since the traffic information received by the VICS information receiving apparatus 104 is generally “congested”, “congested”, or “smooth”, “congested” = large traffic jam (5), “congested” = congested (3 ) And “smooth” = smooth (1), the traffic jam situation is determined in association with the ranks described above.

  The past traffic situation history is stored in the memory 106a as shown in FIG. In other words, the traffic congestion status in units of road links on each day of the week is stored for each time zone divided at regular time intervals. In the present embodiment, the time zone is divided into units of 30 minutes, and the traffic jam situation for each time zone is stored. In the example shown in FIG. 2, the traffic jam situation for each road link in each time zone of Monday from 7:00 to 7:30 and 7:30 to 8:00 is shown. The traffic jam situation determined this time is “B1”. The traffic congestion status at the time of the previous determination (previous) is “B2,” the traffic congestion status at the time of the previous determination is “B3”, and the traffic congestion at the time of the previous determination is “B4”. Each is stored as a history. Furthermore, in the “past traffic situation”, the traffic situation determined most frequently in the past, that is, the traffic situation most frequently among the traffic situations stored in B1 to B4 is stored as a normal traffic situation (reference traffic information). Is done.

  Next, processing for updating the above-described traffic situation history based on the detected traffic situation will be described. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a specific example of the update process executed using the VICS information received by the VICS information receiving device 104, that is, the traffic jam information, with respect to the traffic jam situation history shown in FIG. In FIG. 3, the VICS information receiving device 104 received the traffic congestion information of the road link ID shown in FIG. 3A at 7:10 on Monday. In this case, in the time zone including 7:10 on Monday as shown in FIG. 3B, that is, the history of the traffic jam situation of the same road link ID in the time zone from 7:00 to 7:30, the data of “B3” is “ The data “B2” is transferred to “B3”, and the data “B1” is transferred to “B2”. Thereafter, “B1” is updated with the received traffic jam information, and “past traffic jam status” is further updated to obtain an update result shown in FIG. As a result, the history older than the predetermined number of times can be erased, and the latest traffic history of the predetermined number of times can always be retained. In this embodiment, when traffic jam information is received a plurality of times on the same day and at the same time, update processing is performed only at the first reception time, and update processing is not performed at the second and subsequent reception times. .

  FIG. 4 shows the traffic congestion of the corresponding road link ID on the same day and the same time zone when the traffic congestion state of the road on which the vehicle is currently traveling is detected based on the vehicle speed detected by the vehicle speed sensor 101. It is the figure which showed the specific example in the case of updating the log | history of a condition. In FIG. 4, after the history update processing based on the VICS information in FIG. 3 described above for the road link with the road link ID “0CD5239753001” in FIG. It is the figure which showed concretely the update process at the time of determining with it being traffic jam (4).

  In this case, as shown in FIG. 4A, according to the VICS information received immediately before, the traffic information of the current road link ID is a heavy traffic (5). However, since the current traffic jam information is determined to be traffic jam (4) from the actual driving results, priority is given to the traffic jam status judgment result based on the actual driving results as shown in FIG. 4B. Update the status history. That is, “B1” of the same road link ID in the same time zone on the same day is updated with the traffic congestion status detected as a result of actual travel, and “past traffic congestion status” is updated. Accordingly, when the traffic jam information based on the VICS information and the traffic jam status detected as a result of actual travel are different, the traffic jam status detected as a result of actual travel can be preferentially registered in the history.

Based on FIG. 5, a process for calculating the difference in the traffic jam status based on the current traffic jam status and the traffic jam history will be described. The difference in the traffic congestion status is the difference between the rank value of the current traffic congestion information received by the VICS information receiving device 104 and the rank value of “past traffic congestion status” of the same road link ID in the same day of the week and the same time zone. calculate. That is, it is calculated by the following equation (1).
Traffic jam difference = Rank value of received traffic jam information-Rank value of "Past traffic jam status" (1)

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a specific example of a traffic jam difference calculation result on the road links 5a to 5c. The road link 5a is more vacant than usual because the traffic jam difference is -3, and the road link 5b is in a traffic jam situation that is not different from usual because the traffic jam difference is 0. The road link 5c Since the difference is 1, it can be determined that the situation is more crowded than usual. Therefore, road links 5a and 5c are used to notify the driver of roads that are normally congested but not currently congested, and roads that are usually congested but currently congested. Notice.

  As described above, the notification method for the driver includes a method of visually displaying and notifying the monitor 107 and a method of outputting the sound from the speaker 108 and notifying. In the case of notification via the monitor 107, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, traffic jam information is drawn and displayed on a map. That is, the normal traffic situation represented by “past traffic situation” in the traffic situation history shown in FIG. 6A, and the current traffic jam received by the VICS information receiving device 104 shown in FIG. 6B. A portion different from the information, that is, a traffic jam difference is displayed as shown in FIG. In FIG. 6 (c), “always congested road”, “normally congested but currently uncongested road”, and “normally congested but currently congested road” By changing the display contrast of the gauges indicating the respective sections, sections where the current traffic congestion status is different from usual are highlighted. As a result, the driver can easily grasp a section in a traffic jam situation that is different from usual.

  In the case where notification is made by outputting sound from the speaker 108, the driver is notified preferentially in a section where the difference in traffic congestion from the usual is large. Therefore, the voice notification is performed in order from the section with the larger absolute value of the above-described traffic jam difference. For example, in the situation shown in FIG. 5, using the current point name, voice is output in the order of “National highway No. 16 near Yokosuka Natsushima town” and “National highway No. 16 near Yokosuka City Funakoshi town.

  In general, the driver wants to know the difference in the above-described traffic jam situation on a road (a familiar road) that the driver knows well. That is, for roads that the driver does not know well (unguided roads), the driver does not know whether the road is usually crowded or vacant, so the difference between the current and the current There is no point in notifying the driver. Therefore, in the present embodiment, for each road link ID corresponding to the road that has traveled, the count value of the number of times of passage and the last passage date and time are stored in the memory 106a, and based on this count value and the last passage date and time. Thus, the driver's familiarity with the road link is determined. That is, it is determined whether the road is well known to the driver.

  At this time, as the count value of the number of passages increases, the driver is driving a lot on the road, so it is determined that the driver knows this road well, and if the last passage date is new, the driver has recently It can be determined that he knows well because he ran on the road. Therefore, if the count value of the number of passages is not less than a predetermined value, for example, 5 or more, the driver determines that the familiarity with the road link is high, and the last passage date / time is within a predetermined time from the present time, for example, 72 hours (3 days). ), The driver determines that the degree of familiarity with the road link is high. Then, only the road link having a large traffic situation difference and having a high degree of familiarity with the driver is notified to the driver of the traffic situation difference. As a result, only the information required by the driver can be notified to the driver.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the navigation device 100 of the present embodiment. The process shown in FIG. 7 is executed by the control device 106 as a program that is activated when an ignition switch (not shown) is turned on. In step S10, it is determined whether or not the VICS information receiving apparatus 104 has received the VICS information. If the VICS information is not received, the process proceeds to step S70 described later. On the other hand, if the VICS information is received, the process proceeds to step S20.

  In step S20, it is determined whether or not any road link ID included in the received VICS information exists in the history of the traffic jam situation. If the road link ID does not exist in the traffic condition history, the traffic link information of this road link is received for the first time, and therefore comparison with the past history cannot be made, and the process proceeds to step S60 described later.

  If the road link ID is present in the history of traffic jam conditions, the process proceeds to step S30. In step S30, it is determined whether the degree of familiarity of the driver with respect to the road link ID is high based on the count value of the number of times the road link has passed and the last passage date and time. If the familiarity level of the driver is low, it is not necessary to notify the driver even when the current traffic jam situation is different from the normal traffic jam situation as described above, and the process proceeds to step S60.

  When the familiarity level of the driver is high, the process proceeds to step S40. In step S40, “past traffic situation” is extracted from the history of the traffic situation of the road link ID on the same day of the week and the same time zone. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S50, and a traffic jam difference is calculated by the formula (1) based on the rank value of the received traffic jam information and the extracted “past traffic jam status” rank value. In step S60, it is determined whether the above-described processing is completed for all road links included in the received traffic jam information. If not, the process returns to step S20, and the processing for all received road links is completed. Repeat the process until If the processing for all the received road links is completed, the process proceeds to step S70.

  In step S70, as shown in FIG. 6C, the traffic jam information and the traffic jam difference information are displayed on the monitor 107 to notify the driver. In addition, notification is made by voice through the speaker 108. In step S80, based on the received traffic jam information, the traffic jam history is updated as shown in a specific example in FIG.

In step S90, the traffic situation of the road link is determined based on the average vehicle speed when actually traveling on the road link that passed immediately before. In step S100, the traffic jam history is updated with respect to the traffic jam history as shown in FIG. In step S110, 1 is added to the count value of the number of passages of the road link corresponding to the currently traveling road, and the last passage date and time is updated with the current date and time. Then, it progresses to step S120.

  In step S120, it is determined whether the ignition switch is turned off. If it is turned off, the process is terminated. If it is not turned off, the above-described steps S10 to S110 are repeated until it is turned off.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the following operational effects can be obtained.
(1) By calculating the difference in the traffic jam situation based on the current traffic jam situation and the past traffic jam history, roads that are usually jammed but not currently jammed, and usually jammed Although there is no road that is currently congested (the degree of divergence between the present and normal traffic), the driver is notified. In this way, the driver knows in advance that the roads that he / she always thinks are busy and the roads he / she always thinks are vacant are different from the usual situation. You can move to the destination while selecting.
(2) When notifying the driver of the traffic jam difference, only the traffic jam difference on the road that the driver knows well is notified. As a result, the driver does not know the normal situation, so it is not meaningful to notify the driver of the difference between the normal situation and the current situation, not the driver, but only the information that the driver needs. be able to.

(3) When notifying the driver of the traffic jam difference, change the contrast of the gauge displayed on the map according to the traffic jam difference, and give priority to voice output from road links with a large absolute value of the difference. It was. As a result, it is possible to accurately inform the driver of roads with different traffic conditions.
(4) Congestion history is stored for each day of the week and for each time period, and when calculating the difference in congestion, the history of the same day of the week and the same time period as the received congestion information is extracted to calculate the difference in congestion did. As a result, it is possible to calculate a traffic jam difference in consideration of a traffic jam situation that changes depending on the day of the week or time.
(5) The traffic congestion status determined this time in the traffic congestion status history is updated with the traffic congestion status determined based on the average vehicle speed when actually traveling in the road link section. As a result, the history can always be accumulated based on the latest road conditions in the road conditions that change sequentially.

  In the above-described embodiment, an example in which the traffic situation is determined by five ranks of large traffic jam (5), traffic jam (4), congestion (3), smooth (2), and smooth (1) is shown. It is good also as determining with a rank of less than five steps, or a rank of six steps or more.

  Further, the traffic information of “congestion”, “congestion”, or “smooth” received by the VICS information receiving device 104 and the above-mentioned five ranks are classified into “congestion” = large traffic jam (5), “congestion” = Although the example of making it correspond with congestion (3) and “smooth” = smooth (1) is shown, it is not limited to this, for example, “congestion” = congestion (4), “congestion” = congestion (3), Also, ranking may be performed in association with “smooth” = smooth (2).

  In the traffic situation history, an example is shown in which the traffic situation determined this time and the history up to the traffic situation at the time of the previous 3 times determination are stored, but the present invention is not limited to this, and a history of less than 3 times may be stored. It is good also as storing the log | history of 4 times or more. In addition, although the time zone is divided in units of 30 minutes, the time zone may be set in other units such as a unit of 10 minutes or a unit of 60 minutes.

  When displaying traffic information on the monitor 107, “always congested roads”, “normally congested but currently uncongested roads”, and “normally congested but currently congested” An example is shown in which the display contrast of the gauges indicating the respective sections of the “road” is changed and displayed. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, for “a road that is usually congested but currently not congested” and “a road that is usually congested but currently congested”, the absolute value of the congested difference The display contrast may be further changed in accordance with the size, and the road may be displayed with emphasis so that the driver can easily grasp a road having a large difference in traffic congestion from usual.

  The correspondence between the constituent elements of the claims and the embodiment will be described. The vehicle speed sensor 101 corresponds to vehicle speed detection means, the VICS information reception device 104 corresponds to traffic jam information acquisition means, the memory 106a corresponds to history storage means, and the monitor 107 and speaker 108 correspond to notification means. The control device 106 corresponds to a divergence degree calculating means, a counting means, a time measuring means, a familiarity determining means, an average vehicle speed calculating means, and a traffic condition determining means. Note that the present invention is not limited to the configurations in the above-described embodiments as long as the characteristic functions of the present invention are not impaired.

1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of a navigation device 100. FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of the data structure of the log | history of a traffic condition. It is the 1st figure which showed the specific example which updates the log | history of a traffic condition. It is the 2nd figure which showed the specific example which updates the log | history of a traffic condition. It is the figure which showed the specific example of the traffic jam difference calculation result. It is the figure which showed the specific example in the case of drawing traffic jam information on a map. It is a flowchart figure which shows operation | movement of the navigation apparatus 100 of this Embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Navigation apparatus 101 Vehicle speed sensor 102 GPS antenna 103 Vibrating gyro 104 VICS information receiving apparatus 105 Map database 106 Control apparatus 106a Memory 107 Monitor 108 Speaker

Claims (8)

Traffic information acquisition means for acquiring traffic information,
Based on the traffic jam information acquired by the traffic jam information acquisition unit, a history storage unit that stores a history of traffic jam information in association with each road;
A deviation degree calculating means for calculating a deviation degree between the current traffic jam information acquired by the traffic jam information acquiring means and the reference traffic jam information set based on the traffic jam information read from the history storage means;
A navigation device comprising: a notification means for notifying a driver of the deviation degree calculated by the deviation degree calculation means. The navigation device according to claim 1, wherein
The degree of traffic jam by the traffic jam information is quantified, and each traffic jam level is given a positive value that increases as the degree of congestion increases.
The divergence degree calculating means calculates a difference between a value indicating the degree of traffic jam based on the current traffic jam information and a value indicating the degree of traffic jam based on the traffic jam information read from the history storage means as a traffic jam difference. Based on the sign of the traffic jam difference, it is determined whether the road is more vacant than usual or a road that is more congested than usual, and based on the magnitude of the absolute value of the traffic jam difference, A navigation device characterized by determining a magnitude of a difference. The navigation device according to claim 1 or 2,
The navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the notification means notifies the driver of the divergence calculated by the divergence calculation means by at least one of image display via a monitor and audio output via a speaker. The navigation device according to claim 3,
In the case where the calculation result by the divergence degree calculating means is displayed as an image, the notifying means includes a road that is more congested than usual determined by the divergence degree calculating means on a road map, and a road that is more vacant than usual. A navigation device that distinguishes and displays a road that has not been determined. The navigation device according to claim 3,
When the calculation means displays the calculation result by the deviation degree calculation means, the notification means emphasizes a road having a large difference in traffic jam information determined by the deviation degree calculation means from a road having a small difference in traffic jam information. In the case of displaying and outputting a voice, a road with a large difference in the traffic jam information determined by the deviation degree calculating means is voiced prior to a road with a small traffic information difference to notify the driver. A navigation device. In the navigation device according to any one of claims 2 to 4,
The history storage means stores the history of traffic jam information in association with each road by day of the week and by time of day,
The divergence degree calculating means calculates the congestion difference based on a degree of congestion based on current congestion information and a history of the degree of congestion on the same road on the same day of the week and the same time zone as the present. Navigation device. In the navigation device according to any one of claims 1 to 6,
Counting means for counting the number of times each road passes,
A timing means for timing the last passage date of each road;
Familiarity determination means for determining the degree of familiarity of the driver with respect to each road based on either the number of times of passage of each road counted by the counting means and the last passage date and time of each road counted by the time counting means And
The navigation device according to claim 1, wherein the divergence degree calculating means calculates the divergence degree only for a road determined by the familiarity degree determining means as having a high degree of familiarity with a driver. In the navigation device according to any one of claims 2 to 7,
Vehicle speed detection means for detecting the vehicle speed of the host vehicle;
Based on the vehicle speed of the host vehicle detected by the vehicle speed detection means, average vehicle speed calculation means for calculating the average vehicle speed on the road that has passed,
Based on the average vehicle speed calculated by the average vehicle speed calculation means, further comprising traffic information determination means for determining traffic information of the road that has passed,
A navigation device, wherein the traffic jam information of the passing road stored in the history storage unit is updated with the traffic jam information determined by the traffic jam information determination unit based on the traffic jam information acquired by the traffic jam information acquisition unit. .

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