JP2020071190A - Facility information providing system and facility information providing method - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a facility information providing system and a facility information providing method in which a user's convenience is improved by providing information in an appropriate manner with the features of chain stores taken into account, when providing information pertaining to facilities in a prescribed region.SOLUTION: The present invention comprises a user information registration unit 11 (region registration unit) for registering a user originating region that corresponds to a region originating from a user, a facility search unit 12 for searching for a facility in a prescribed region, and a facility information provision unit 17 for providing facility relating to information utilizing the search result of the facility search unit 12. For chain stores present in the user originating region, information is not provided by the facility information provision unit 17, or information is provided in a low priority state after comparison with other facilities. Thus, information pertaining to a chain store which the user is familiar with is not provided, or is provided in a low priority state.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

  The present invention relates to a facility information providing system and a facility information providing method for searching facilities and providing information about the facilities.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there are systems that provide information about facilities to users who board vehicles. For example, in a system having a navigation device provided in a vehicle, in response to a user's instruction, a facility in a genre designated by the user is searched out of facilities around the vehicle to provide information, or while guiding a guide route. , Provides information by searching facilities around the destination.

  Regarding a system that provides information on such facilities, Patent Literature 1 describes the following technique. That is, in Patent Document 1, regarding a navigation device that searches for facilities according to the priority of genres and provides information, when a vehicle is traveling in an area outside the area in which the user normally lives, The technology for increasing the priority of genres closely related to the region such as "special product / tourist attraction" is described. According to the technology described in Patent Document 1, when the user is traveling in an area outside the area in which he / she normally lives, the user can obtain information about facilities unique to that area.

JP, 2009-042129, A

  By the way, various chain stores are currently established in various places. Chain stores have the following two features. The first feature is that chain stores of the same series operate under the same concept and provide similar services, so if a user is familiar with a chain store of a specific series, The characteristic is that the chain stores of that particular series are not unique to the region no matter where they are located. The second characteristic is that, depending on the chain, some chain stores are widely spread throughout the country, while others are only spread within a narrow area of a specific region.

  Considering such characteristics of chain stores, when providing information about facilities, by properly handling the chain stores, it is possible to enhance user convenience in that it provides region-specific information. It is thought to be possible. However, the technology described in Patent Document 1 only adjusts the priority of the genres of facilities to be provided depending on whether or not the position of the vehicle belongs to the area in which the user usually lives, and the chain store It has not been considered and there is room for improvement in that respect.

  The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and when providing information about facilities in a predetermined area, provides information about facilities in an appropriate mode in consideration of the characteristics of chain stores. By doing so, it is intended to improve the convenience of the user.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, while registering the user-derived area corresponding to the area derived from the user, for chain stores existing in the user-derived area, so that information is not provided, or , The information is provided in a low priority compared to other facilities.

  According to the present invention configured as described above, with respect to chain stores existing in the area derived from the user, information about the facility is not provided, or the information is displayed in a state where the priority is low compared to other facilities. Provided. Therefore, it is possible to prevent information about chain stores that are familiar to users and not expected to be region-specific for users from being provided in the same way as information about facility specific to the region. It is possible to improve the property. Furthermore, information is provided for chain stores that do not exist in the area where the user originates. Therefore, it is possible to provide the user with information about a chain store that is not familiar to the user and is assumed to be unique to the user, and in that respect, the convenience for the user can be improved.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the facility information provision system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the functional structural example of each apparatus contained in the facility information provision system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of UI for origin area input. It is a figure which shows the position of a user origin area | region on a map, and a chain store typically. It is a flowchart which shows the operation example of the facility information provision system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention.

  An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a facility information providing system 1 according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, the facility information providing system 1 includes a control server 2, a user terminal 3, and an in-vehicle device 4. The control server 2, the user terminal 3, and the vehicle-mounted device 4 are each accessible to a network N including the Internet, a telephone network, a mobile communication network, and other communication networks.

  The facility information providing system 1 is a system that provides a facility information providing service that provides information about facilities to users. In particular, the facility information providing system 1 according to the present embodiment improves the convenience for the user by providing the information about the chain store in a predetermined mode described later.

  In the present embodiment, with respect to a chain store, “chain store of the same series” means a group of facilities that operate under the same concept under a common or related brand and that provide the same service. Therefore, basically, one chain store and another chain store of the same series have basically the same appearance, but if they are facilities that provide food and drink, they will sell food and drink of the same content at the same price. If the facility provides and sells products, products with similar contents are provided at similar prices.

  The control server 2 is a server device that is connected to the network N and can be accessed from the user terminal 3 and the in-vehicle device 4 via the network N. As will be described later, the control server 2 cooperates with the user terminal 3 and the in-vehicle device 4 to store facility information. Providing services. In FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 described later, the control server 2 is represented by one block, but this does not mean that the control server 2 is configured by a single device. The control server 2 may be composed of a plurality of devices and may be a part of a predetermined system.

  The user terminal 3 is a terminal owned by the user. In the present embodiment, the user terminal 3 is assumed to be a tablet terminal (for example, a smartphone or a tablet computer) in which the terminal-side touch screen 6 is provided in a wide area on the front surface of a plate-shaped housing. However, the user terminal 3 may be any device that can execute various processes described later, and for example, a notebook computer or a wearable terminal (for example, a wristwatch-type wearable terminal) can be used as the user terminal 3. A dedicated application (hereinafter referred to as “dedicated application”) related to the facility information providing service is installed in the user terminal 3. The function of the dedicated application will be described later.

  The vehicle-mounted device 4 is a so-called navigation device provided in the vehicle, and has a function of detecting the current position of the vehicle (hereinafter, referred to as “self-vehicle position”), a function of searching for a guidance route, and a guidance of the searched guidance route. It has the function to do. The vehicle-mounted device 4 is connected to a vehicle-mounted touch screen 7 provided at a central portion of a vehicle dashboard or the like. The in-vehicle device 4 does not have to be a device that is fixedly mounted in the vehicle, and may be a device that is configured to be removable. In addition, a mobile terminal (smartphone, smartphone, or Tablet computer, notebook computer, etc.). That is, the in-vehicle device 4 may be any device that can execute various processes described below.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration example of each device included in the facility information providing system 1. As shown in FIG. 2, the control server 2 includes a communication unit 10, a user information registration unit 11, and a facility search unit 12 as functional configurations. Further, the user terminal 3 includes a communication unit 13 and a dedicated application execution unit 14 as functional configurations. The vehicle-mounted device 4 also includes a communication unit 15, a route guidance unit 16, and a facility information providing unit 17 as functional configurations. Each of the functional blocks 10 to 17 can be configured by any of hardware, DSP (Digital Signal Processor), and software. For example, when configured by software, each of the functional blocks 10 to 17 is actually configured by including a CPU, a RAM, a ROM, etc. of a computer, and a program stored in a recording medium such as a RAM, a ROM, a hard disk or a semiconductor memory. Is realized by operating.

  The communication unit 10 of the control server 2, the communication unit 13 of the user terminal 3, and the communication unit 15 of the vehicle-mounted device 4 each communicate with an external device via the network N according to a predetermined communication standard. The dedicated application execution unit 14 of the user terminal 3 executes various processes by the function of the dedicated application (including an accompanying program such as API provided by the OS) installed in the user terminal 3. The route guidance unit 16 of the vehicle-mounted device 4 searches for a guidance route when the user specifies a destination via the vehicle-mounted touch screen 7 and then guides the guidance route to the destination. ,invite.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the control server 2 includes a server-side storage unit 20 as a storage unit. The server-side storage unit 20 includes a hard disk, a magnetic tape, and other non-volatile storage media, and stores various data. The server-side storage unit 20 stores at least a user management database 21 (hereinafter referred to as "user management DB 21") and a facility database 22 (hereinafter referred to as "facility DB 22"). The contents of these databases will be described later. In the present embodiment, part or all of the data stored in the server-side storage unit 20 is stored in a device different from the control server 2, and the control server 2 accesses the device as appropriate to obtain the data. It may be configured.

  Now, as described above, the facility information providing system 1 provides the facility information providing service to the user. The user needs to perform user registration in advance in order to receive this facility information providing service, and the facility information providing system 1 provides the facility information providing service to the user who has completed the user registration. Hereinafter, processing of each device of the facility information providing system 1 at the time of user registration and processing of each device of the facility information providing system 1 at the time of facility information providing service will be described in order.

<At user registration>
Hereinafter, processing of each device of the facility information providing system 1 at the time of user registration will be described. Upon user registration, the user installs the dedicated application on the user terminal 3 by a predetermined means and activates the dedicated application. When the dedicated application is started for the first time after installation, the dedicated application execution unit 14 of the user terminal 3 causes the user information registration unit 11 of the control server 2 to enter the origin area user interface 24 (see FIG. 3. A display file (for example, an HTML file) for displaying the “input UI 24”) is requested and the display file is acquired. The dedicated application execution unit 14 displays the first screen 24a of the origin area input UI 24 on the terminal side touch screen 6 based on the acquired display file.

  FIG. 3A is a diagram showing a first screen 24a of the origin area input UI 24 according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3A, on the first screen 24a of the origin area input UI 24, a map showing the entire region of Japan is displayed in a state where prefectures can be individually selected, and "the city where you live" is displayed. Information that prompts you to select "States with municipalities", "States with municipalities you have lived in", and "States with frequently visited cities" is displayed. The user selects a prefecture based on the information.

  When the prefecture is selected by the user, the dedicated application execution unit 14 displays the second screen 24b of the origin area input UI 24 corresponding to the selected prefecture. The dedicated application execution unit 14 acquires the display file necessary for displaying the second screen 24b from the user information registration unit 11 of the control server 2. FIG. 3B is a diagram showing the second screen 24b of the origin area input UI 24 according to the present embodiment. In particular, FIG. 3B shows the second screen 24b corresponding to Fukushima Prefecture, assuming that the user has selected Fukushima Prefecture on the first screen 24a.

  As shown in FIG. 3B, on the second screen 24b, a map showing the entire region of the prefecture is displayed in a state where the municipalities belonging to the prefecture selected by the user can be individually selected. .. In addition, the second screen 24b displays information that prompts the selection of the municipality. Based on the information, the user selects a municipality that corresponds to any of “the municipality where he / she lives”, “the municipality where he / she has lived” and “the frequently visited municipality”. As shown in FIG. 3 (B), the second screen 24b includes a button 25 that is operated when further selecting a city, and a button 26 that is operated when ending the selection of a city. Is displayed.

  When the button 25 is operated, the dedicated application executing unit 14 displays the first screen 24a again, and the user selects a desired municipality in the order of prefecture → municipality. When the button 26 is operated, the dedicated application executing unit 14 causes the user ID set for each dedicated application and the municipality selected by the user (in the case where the user selects a plurality of municipalities). , Each of a plurality of municipalities) is transmitted to the user information registration unit 11 of the control server 2. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the information indicating the municipalities is a municipality ID uniquely assigned to each municipality. As described above, the user, using the origin area input UI 24, falls under any of “the city where he / she lives”, “the city where he / she lived” and “the city where he often goes”. Select one or more cities to do.

  The user information registration unit 11 of the control server 2 receives one or more municipality IDs together with the user ID from the dedicated application execution unit 14 of the user terminal 3. Next, the user information registration unit 11 specifies a corresponding user-derived area for each of the received municipality IDs for each municipality ID. Hereinafter, the process in which the user information registration unit 11 specifies the user-derived area corresponding to one municipality ID will be described in detail.

  The user information registration unit 11 identifies the center position on the map of the municipality of the one municipality ID, based on the one municipality ID. For example, for each of the municipalities, information that associates the municipality ID with the center position on the map is stored in a predetermined storage area, and the user information registration unit 11 uses the center position based on the information. Specify. In addition, the user information registration unit 11 may calculate and specify the center position based on the map information.

  After identifying the center position on the map of the municipality of the one municipality ID, the user information registration unit 11 determines an area within a radius of 100 km with the identified central position as the center. It is specified as a user-derived area corresponding to. The above is the method for identifying the user-derived area corresponding to the one municipality ID. The user information registration unit 11 specifies a user-derived area for each of the received municipality IDs.

  Here, the relationship between the user-derived area and the chain store will be described. As mentioned above, the user-derived area is an area within a radius of 100 km centered on the center of the "city where the user lives", "city where the user has lived" or "town where the user often goes". is there. When there is a specific chain of stores in such a user-derived area (in this case, it is assumed that multiple chain stores of that specific series exist in the user-derived area due to the characteristics of chain stores). The user may have actually visited the chain store of that particular series, have seen the appearance of the store, or have noticed its existence through advertising or publicity. It is assumed that you are familiar with it.

  On the other hand, if there is no chain store of a specific affiliate in the user-derived area, the user has no opportunity to recognize the chain store of that particular affiliate and is unfamiliar with the chain store of that particular affiliate. Is assumed. Some of the chain stores are nationwide, and some are only in a specific area.There are also chain stores that are nationwide. In some cases, it has not been done. Therefore, there may be a case where a chain store of a predetermined series does not exist in the user-derived area.

  By the way, the user information registration unit 11 identifies the user-derived area for each of the received municipality IDs, and then identifies the received user ID in the user management DB 21 stored in the server-side storage unit 20. Alternatively, one record including information indicating a plurality of user-derived areas is registered. The information indicating the user-derived area may be any information that can specify the range of the user-derived area on the map.

  With the above, user registration is completed. In the present embodiment, the user registration is performed when the dedicated application is activated for the first time, but the user registration may be performed at any time. Further, the user information registration unit 11 corresponds to the “region registration unit” in the claims, in that (the information indicating) the user-derived region is registered.

<At facility information service>
Next, processing of each device of the facility information providing system 1 at the time of providing facility information providing service will be described. In the present embodiment, at least the following two events are used as a trigger to provide the facility information providing service with the facility information to the user. One of the events is that a user riding in a vehicle equipped with the in-vehicle apparatus 4 has instructed guidance of a guide route to a predetermined destination. In this case, information about the facility around the predetermined destination is provided via the vehicle-mounted device 4. The other one of the events is that after the dedicated application of the user terminal 3 is activated, the facility around the user's current position (= the current position of the user terminal 3) is sent via a predetermined user interface provided by the dedicated application. That is, the search is instructed. In this case, information about facilities around the user's current position is provided via the user terminal 3. In this case, the user does not necessarily have to be in the vehicle.

  It should be noted that the event that serves as a trigger for providing information about the facility and the content of the information about the facility illustrated in the present embodiment are merely examples. For example, regardless of whether or not the guidance route is being provided, when the user instructs to search for a facility around the vehicle position, information about the facility around the vehicle position is provided. May be Also, for example, regardless of whether or not a guidance route is being provided, when the user instructs to search for facilities around a specific position on the map or within a specific area, the area around the specific position or the specific position is specified. The information regarding the facilities existing in the area may be provided.

  Hereinafter, when information about facilities around the predetermined destination is provided as a trigger when an instruction of a guide route to a predetermined destination is instructed by a user boarding a vehicle equipped with the in-vehicle device 4 (first (1 case) The operation of each device of the facility information providing system 1 and an instruction to search for a facility around the user's current location through a predetermined user interface provided by a dedicated application trigger the user. The operation of each device of the facility information providing system 1 when providing information about the facilities around the current position of (No. 2) will be described.

  In the following description, it is assumed that the genres of the facilities that the user desires to receive the information are registered in advance, and information regarding the facilities is provided for the facilities of the registered genres. However, the genres of facilities to be searched are not limited to those registered in advance by the user. For example, the user may specify each time before the information about the facility is provided. Further, it may be a fixed genre that is determined in advance.

<First case>
In the first case, the user performs a predetermined operation on the in-vehicle touch screen 7 to set the destination and instructs the guidance route. In response to the instruction, the route guidance unit 16 of the vehicle-mounted device 4 starts the process related to the search of the guide route and outputs the information indicating the set destination position to the facility information providing unit 17.

  The facility information providing unit 17 inputs information indicating the position of the destination. Next, the facility information providing unit 17 includes information indicating the position of the destination, the genre ID of the genre of the facility to be searched (identification information that uniquely identifies the genre), and the user ID, and the vicinity of the destination. The response request information for requesting the response of the providing facility information (described later) for each of the existing facilities is transmitted to the facility searching unit 12 of the control server 2. The user ID is registered in advance in the in-vehicle device 4 by the user. The facility information providing unit 17 of the in-vehicle device 4 may be configured to acquire the user ID from the dedicated application executing unit 14 of the user terminal 3 by communication.

  The facility search unit 12 receives the response request information. Next, the facility search unit 12 refers to the user management DB 21 using the user ID included in the response request information as a key, and acquires each piece of information indicating the user-derived area. Next, the facility search unit 12 refers to the facility DB 22 to identify the chain ID of the chain store existing in the user-derived area.

  More specifically, the facility DB 22 has a record for each facility on the map. Each record includes facility key information having a facility ID for identifying a facility as a value, facility genre information having a genre ID of a facility genre as a value, facility location information indicating a location on the map of the facility, sequence information, and , At least providing facility information (described later). When the one facility is a chain store, the sequence information of the one facility has a sequence ID (identification information that uniquely identifies the sequence) of the sequence to which the one facility belongs as a value, while If the facility is not a chain store, it has a null value. Therefore, for a particular facility, whether or not the particular facility is a chain store can be determined by whether or not the sequence information of the particular facility is a null value, and when the particular facility is a chain store. Can acquire the series ID of the series to which the specific facility belongs from the series information. Note that the series ID may be called by the name “brand”.

  The facility search unit 12 determines, based on each piece of information indicating the user-derived area acquired from the user management DB 21 and the facility position information and sequence information included in each record of the facility DB 22, the chain store existing in the user-derived area. Specify the series ID. For example, when there are three user-derived regions R1, R2, R3 in the manner shown in FIG. 4 on the map, the chain store with the sequence ID: A exists in the user-derived regions R1, R2, R3, and the sequence ID: When the chain store of B exists in the user-derived region R1 and the chain store of the sequence ID: C does not exist in any of the user-derived regions, the facility search unit 12 determines that the chain store existing in the user-derived region. The sequence ID: A and the sequence ID: B are specified as the sequence IDs of.

  Next, the facility search unit 12 excludes records in which the value of the facility genre information is different from the genre ID included in the response request information from the records in the facility DB 22 (hereinafter, referred to as “first record group”). ) Is specified. This process is performed for the purpose of excluding the facilities of the genre different from the registered genre from the search targets (the facilities of the same genre as the registered genre are the search targets). Next, the facility search unit 12 excludes records among the records included in the first record group, in which the value of the series information is the same as the series ID specified as the series ID of the chain store existing in the user-derived area. A group (hereinafter, referred to as "second record group") is specified. This process is performed for the purpose of excluding the chain stores of the affiliated chain existing in the user-derived area from the search targets (targeting the chain stores of the affiliated chains not existing in the user derived region). The second record group is in a state of including records of “facility that is not a chain store” or “facility that is a chain store and does not exist in the user-derived area” among the facilities of the registered genres. ..

  Next, the facility search unit 12 targets the second record group based on the information indicating the position of the destination included in the response request information and exists in the vicinity of the destination among the records of the second record group. Specify the record of the facility to be used. The range around the destination is predetermined (for example, within a radius of 5 km around the destination), and the facility search unit 12 determines the position of the destination included in the response request information. A record is specified based on the information indicating the above and the facility position information of each record of the second record group.

  Next, the facility search unit 12 transmits the provided facility information of each identified record to the facility information providing unit 17 of the vehicle-mounted device 4. The providing facility information is information about the facility, and includes the information necessary for the facility information providing unit 17 to display the information for each facility on the in-vehicle touch screen 7 in a manner described later.

  The facility information providing unit 17 receives each of the providing facility information. The provided facility information received here is either “a facility that is not a chain store” or “a chain store that exists in the user-derived area” among the facilities of the registered genres that exist near the destination. It is the facility information for provision of "facility not provided". The facility information providing unit 17 displays information about each facility in a predetermined mode (layout or rule) based on the facility information for provision of each facility. As an example, the facility information providing unit 17 displays a list of names of each facility in a selectable state, and when a facility is selected, displays detailed information of the facility. If the facility is, for example, a restaurant, the detailed information of the facility includes the name of the facility, evaluation of the facility, business hours, telephone number, price range, and photographs of food. In the present embodiment, the detailed information of one facility is included in the providing facility information of the one facility, but a part or all of the information is provided to an external device (for example, on the Internet). It may be configured to communicate with a predetermined server) and acquire from the external device.

<Second case>
Next, the second case will be described. In the following description of the second case, the GPS unit is installed in the user terminal 3, and the dedicated application executing unit 14 uses the API provided by the OS to determine the current position of the user (strictly speaking, Although it is the current position of the user terminal 3, it is assumed that it is possible to acquire information indicating the current position of the user). Further, the processing overlapping with the first case will be briefly described.

  In the second case, the user instructs a predetermined user interface provided by the dedicated application to search for facilities around the user's current position. In response to the instruction, the dedicated application execution unit 14 transmits the response request information including the information indicating the current position of the user, the genre ID, and the user ID to the facility search unit 12 of the control server 2. The facility search unit 12 receives the response request information. Then, the facility search unit 12 specifies the second record group by the same method as the method described in the first case, and targets the second record group, and selects the current position of the user among the records of the second record group. Identify records of facilities existing in the vicinity.

  Next, the facility search unit 12 transmits the provided facility information of each identified record to the dedicated application execution unit 14 of the user terminal 3. The dedicated application execution unit 14 displays information regarding each facility on the terminal side touch screen 6 based on each of the received facility information for provision. The facility whose information is displayed here is either a facility that is not a chain store, or is a chain store that exists in the user-derived area, among facilities of the registered genre that exist near the user's current location. It is a facility that does not.

  In the second case, the dedicated application executing unit 14 of the user terminal 3 corresponds to the “facility information providing unit” in the claims.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, the information about the facility is not provided for the chain stores existing in the user-derived area. Therefore, it is possible to prevent information about chain stores that are familiar to users and not expected to be region-specific for users from being provided in the same way as information about facility specific to the region. It is possible to improve the property. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, the chain stores that do not exist in the user-derived area are subject to facility search. Therefore, it is possible to provide the user with information about a chain store that is not familiar to the user and is assumed to be unique to the user, and in that respect, the convenience for the user can be improved.

  Next, an operation example of the facility information providing system 1 when providing information about a facility will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 5 by taking the processing executed by the vehicle-mounted device 4 and the control server 2 in the case of the first case as an example. .. As shown in the flowchart FA of FIG. 5, first, the user performs a predetermined operation on the in-vehicle touch screen 7 to set the destination and instructs the guidance route (step SX1).

  In response to the instruction of step SX1, the facility information providing unit 17 inputs the information indicating the position of the destination and transmits the response request information including the information, the genre ID and the user ID to the facility searching unit 12 of the control server 2. Yes (step SA1).

  As shown in the flowchart FB, the facility search unit 12 of the control server 2 receives the response request information (step SB1). Next, the facility search unit 12 refers to the user management DB 21 using the user ID included in the response request information as a key, and acquires each piece of information indicating the user-derived area (step SB2). Next, the facility search unit 12 refers to the facility DB 22 and identifies the series ID of the chain store existing in the user-derived area (step SB3).

  Next, the facility search unit 12 identifies the first record group from which the records of which the value of the facility genre information is different from the genre ID included in the response request information are excluded from the records of the facility DB 22 (step SB4). Next, the facility search unit 12 excludes, from the records included in the first record group, a record whose series information value is the same as the series ID specified as the series ID of the chain store existing in the user-derived area. Two record groups are specified (step SB5).

  Next, the facility search unit 12 targets the second record group based on the information indicating the position of the destination included in the response request information and exists in the vicinity of the destination among the records of the second record group. The record of the facility to be specified is specified (step SB6). Next, the facility search unit 12 transmits the provided facility information of each of the identified records to the facility information providing unit 17 of the vehicle-mounted device 4 (step SB7).

  The facility information providing unit 17 of the vehicle-mounted device 4 receives each of the providing facility information (step SA2). Next, the facility information providing unit 17 displays the information on each facility in a predetermined mode (layout or rule) based on the facility information for provision of each facility (step SA3).

<Modification>
Next, a modified example of the above embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. In the above-described embodiment, the facility search unit 12 targets only the chain stores that do not exist in the user-derived area when searching for the facility, and the facility information providing unit 17 searches the facility search unit 12 for the chain stores. Provided information about the facility. On the other hand, you may do as follows.

  That is, when searching for a facility, the facility search unit 12 sets a chain store as a target to be searched regardless of whether it exists in the user-derived area. Then, the facility information providing unit 17 refers to the user management DB 21 and the facility DB 22 and, among the facilities searched by the facility searching unit 12, does not provide information about the chain stores existing in the user-derived area, Alternatively, the information may be provided in a state where the priority is lower than that of other facilities. As a method of providing information about chain stores existing in the user-derived area with a lower priority than other facilities, as an example, a list display with the names of each facility selectable (vertical information When arranging), when the chain stores that exist in the user-originated area are displayed below other facilities.

  Even with the method of the modified example, the chain stores existing in the user-derived area are not provided with the information about the facility or provided with the information in a low priority order, and thus the same effect as that of the first embodiment is obtained. Obtainable.

  Although one embodiment of the present invention and its modified example have been described above, the above embodiment is merely an example of the embodiment for carrying out the present invention, and the technical scope of the present invention is thereby provided. It should not be construed in a limited way. That is, the present invention can be implemented in various forms without departing from the gist or the main features thereof.

  For example, in the above-described embodiment, the user information registration unit 11 that functions as the “region registration unit” in the claims claims the user-derived region (information indicating the region) based on the input to the origin-region input UI 24. In this regard, the following configurations may be adopted. That is, the in-vehicle device 4 appropriately transmits the information about the vehicle position together with the user ID to the user information registration unit 11. Further, the dedicated application execution unit 14 of the user terminal 3 is configured to appropriately transmit the user ID and information regarding the current position of the user to the user information registration unit 11. However, either the vehicle-mounted device 4 or the user terminal 3 may be configured not to transmit information. The user information registration unit 11 records a log of an area in which the user is active based on the information received from the vehicle-mounted device 4 and the user terminal 3. Then, the user information registration unit 11 analyzes the log at an appropriate timing, and "the area where he / she lives", "the area where he / she has lived" or "the area where he often goes" (however, the area is the same as that in the above embodiment). Therefore, the information indicating the user-derived area is registered based on the determination result. The above configuration may be adopted.

  Further, for example, the one functional block that one device has in the above-described embodiment may be configured to be included in another device. However, it is limited to the case where the function of the one functional block can be exhibited in the other device. As an example, the user information registration unit 11 may be provided in the vehicle-mounted device 4 or the user terminal 3. However, in any case, the user information registration unit 11 needs to be in a state of being able to access the user management DB 21 at a predetermined position. Further, as an example, the facility search unit 12 may be provided in the vehicle-mounted device 4 or the user terminal 3. However, in any case, the facility search unit 12 needs to be able to access the user management DB 21 and the facility DB 22 located at predetermined positions. Further, the route guidance unit 16 and the facility information providing unit 17 may be included in the user terminal 3.

  In addition, the configuration is such that voice input can be performed in the vehicle-mounted device 4 and the user terminal 3, and the input described as being performed by operating the vehicle-mounted touch screen 7 or the terminal-side touch screen 6 in the above embodiment can be performed by voice input. You can

  Further, in the above-described embodiment, the facility search unit 12 specifies the chain ID of the chain store existing in the user-derived area each time the response request information is input. In this regard, the facility search unit 12 identifies and records the chain ID of the chain store existing in the user-derived area for each user in advance at a predetermined timing (for example, the timing when the user registration is performed). It may be configured in advance.

  Moreover, the aspect of the user-derived area in the above-described embodiment is merely an example. For example, the points where the radius of the user-derived area is 100 km may have different lengths, and the circular points may have different shapes, and the administrative divisions (municipalities, prefectures, etc.) themselves may be used. The origin area may be used, or the area explicitly designated by the user may be used as the user origin area.

1 Facility information providing system 11 User information registration section (regional registration section)
12 Facility search section 17 Facility information providing section 22 Facility database

Claims (6)

A region registration section that registers user-derived regions corresponding to regions derived from users,
A facility search unit that searches for facilities in a predetermined area,
A facility information providing unit that provides information about facilities using the search result of the facility searching unit,
Regarding the chain stores existing in the user-derived area, the facility information providing unit may not provide the information, or the information may be provided in a lower priority compared with other facilities. Characteristic facility information provision system. When searching for facilities, the facility search unit, as for the chain stores, targets only the chain stores that do not exist in the user-derived area,
The facility information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the facility information providing unit provides information about the facility searched by the facility searching unit. The facility search unit, when searching for a facility, a chain store is a target to be searched regardless of whether it exists in the user-derived area,
Of the facilities searched by the facility search unit, the facility information providing unit does not provide information about the chain stores existing in the user-derived area, or has a lower priority than other facilities. The facility information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the information is provided in a state. The area registration section
The facility information providing system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a user interface for registering an area is provided to the user, and the user-derived area is registered based on an input to the user interface. The area registration section
The facility information providing system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a log of an area in which the user is active is recorded, the log is analyzed, and the area derived from the user is registered. A first step in which the facility search unit of the facility information providing system searches for facilities in a predetermined area;
A facility information providing unit of the facility information providing system includes a second step of providing information about a facility using a search result of the facility searching unit;
Regarding the provision of information on facilities by the facility information providing unit in the second step, information is not provided for chain stores existing in the user-derived area that is registered in advance, or compared with other facilities. The facility information providing method is characterized in that the information is provided in a low priority state.