JPH07282383A - Road information system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To collect and present spatially covered road information at the time of measuring a traffic flow on a road. CONSTITUTION:An on-vehicle type road information input device 101 is loaded on a moving vehicle 100, an input part 102 takes time-sequential pictures with a camera and records these pictures, a working part 103 extracts road information such as traffic volume and photographing time and a transmitting part 104 transmits the extracted information. In a road information output device 105, a receiving part 106 receives the road information transmitted from the transmitting part 104 in the device 101, a working part 107 works the road information and an output part 108 outputs the worked information.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for surveying and measuring traffic flow of road traffic, and more particularly to a system for collecting comprehensive road information without using a large number of fixed point observation points.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Regarding the method of measuring traffic flow, Traffic Engineering Study Group, Traffic Engineering Handbook, Gihodo (1973)
Page 196 to 203 (known example 1) of automatic traffic volume such as a method of directly counting with a manual counting device, a contact type wheel sensitive type, and a non-contact type vehicle body sensitive type using ultrasonic waves or radar. There is a description of the method using a measuring instrument.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In this conventional method,
There are the following issues.

In either method, the observation is a fixed-point observation, and when more comprehensive data is required, the cost is as high as the number of observation points.

An object of the present invention is to provide a system for collecting and presenting spatially comprehensive road information without providing a large number of fixed point observation points.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention processes an input unit for photographing and recording time series images of roads with a camera and road information such as traffic volume and photographing time. A vehicle-mounted road information input device consisting of a processing unit for generating and a transmitting unit for transmitting this road information, a receiving unit for receiving this road information, and a processing unit for processing this road information,
A road information output device including an output unit that outputs processed road information.

Further, a vehicle-mounted road information input device comprising an input unit for photographing and recording a time-series image of a road with a camera and a transmission unit for transmitting the time-series image, and receiving the time-series image. A road information output device includes a receiving unit, a processing unit that processes and generates road information such as traffic volume and shooting time from the time-series image, and an output unit that outputs the processed road information.

[0008]

According to the present invention, the image of the road can be obtained at a large number of spatially continuous points by moving the measuring points for obtaining the road information. By obtaining the traffic volume from this image and transmitting it to the outside, spatially comprehensive road information can be output to the road information output device.

Further, by moving the measurement points for obtaining road information, road images can be obtained at a number of spatially continuous points. By transmitting this image to the outside and determining the traffic volume, spatially comprehensive road information can be output to the road information output device.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The road information system of the present invention is roughly divided into a road information input device and a road information output device. The structure is shown in FIG.

A road information input device 101 shown in FIG.
Is a vehicle-mounted type and is mounted on the moving vehicle 100.
It has an input unit 102, a processing unit 103, and a transmission unit 104 as its constituent elements. In the input unit 102, the camera captures a time-series image including at least information of the oncoming lane and records it. The processing unit 103 extracts road information such as traffic volume and shooting time from the obtained time series images. Transmitter 104
Then, the extracted road information is transmitted.

A road information output device 105 shown in FIG. 1 (b).
Has a receiving unit 106, a processing unit 107, and an output unit 108 as its constituent elements. The receiving unit 106 receives the road information transmitted from the transmitting unit of the road information input device. The processing unit 107 processes the road information. Output unit 108
Then, the processed road information is output.

The structure of the processing unit 103 of the road information input device 101 is shown in FIG. Timing unit 202, oncoming vehicle counting unit 20
3, measurement data storage unit 201, road information storage unit 204
Are mutually connected via a bus 200. The image input from the input unit 102 of the road information input device 101 is
The measurement data is stored in the measurement data storage unit 201 in time series together with the time output by the clock unit 202. Oncoming vehicles are counted by the oncoming vehicle counting unit 203 using the time-series images stored in the measurement data storage unit 201, and the result is stored in the road information storage unit 204 together with the time data.

Next, a method of counting oncoming vehicles in the oncoming vehicle counting section 203 will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 3 to 6.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart for explaining the method of counting oncoming vehicles. In step 401, initialization is performed when counting is started. Here, the vehicle ID is initialized. The vehicle ID is a number given to each vehicle to be counted.

In step 402, conditional branching is performed. When the image sequence for counting the oncoming vehicles is completed and the counting is finished, the process proceeds to step 408, and when the image sequence for counting the oncoming vehicles continues, the process proceeds to step 403.

In step 403, the oncoming vehicle area is set. The process at this stage will be described with reference to FIG. The image currently being processed is the image at time t. As an image of the vehicle,
A plurality of templates 301 are prepared, and in the image at the time t, matching processing is performed by correlation with the template while shifting the position of the template, and if the correlation is higher than a predetermined threshold value, the position of the template of the oncoming vehicle. Think of it as a location. This is stored in the road information storage unit 204 for each image in a data format as shown in FIG. In FIG. 6, the window number includes the order in which the template is collated. The coordinates include the coordinates of the position matched with the template. The vehicle ID will be described later.
As described above, since the position where the oncoming vehicle exists is specified for each image to be processed, at the time point when step 403 is finished, as shown in FIG. The position of the oncoming vehicle is obtained.

At step 404, conditional branching is performed. The following process is repeated for the number of vehicles (the number of windows) that have been matched with the template at time t, and when all the repetitions are completed, the process proceeds to step 402.

At step 405, conditional branching is performed. Each vehicle at time t is collated with the vehicle in the image at time (t-1). If the correlation is lower than a predetermined threshold value, it is determined that the vehicle has newly appeared at time t, and step 406 is performed. If the correlation is high, it is determined that the vehicle is the same as the vehicle that existed at time (t-1), and the process proceeds to step 407. At this time, the vehicle search area at time (t-1) is set to the upper side of the vehicle position at time t (hatched portion in FIG. 5), and only the vehicle having coordinates at this position is the target of the matching process.

In step 406, a new vehicle ID is given and written in the vehicle ID column of the data format shown in FIG. In step 407, the vehicle ID of the vehicle at the corresponding time (t-1) is assigned, and the vehicle I in the data format shown in FIG. 6 is assigned.
Write in column D.

Upon completion of step 406 or step 407, the process returns to step 404.

Step 408 is a counting process, in which the number of oncoming vehicles is calculated by the following equation 1.

[0023]

## EQU1 ## C (i, j) = max (j) -min (i) + 1-num (j) (Equation 1) where c (i, j) is the j-th image from the i-th image. The number of oncoming vehicles up to the image, max (j) is the maximum value of the vehicle ID in the j-th image, min (i) is the minimum value of the vehicle ID in the i-th image, and num (j ) Is j
It is the number of vehicles in the second image. The result is stored in the road information storage unit 204, and the process ends.

In the transmission unit 104, the road information storage unit 204
The number of oncoming vehicles in a certain section stored in is transmitted as road information.

The receiving unit 106 of the road information output device 105 receives this.

In the processing unit 107, the position information of the obtained road information is estimated by referring to the table that associates the position of the moving vehicle with the time of the moving vehicle determined in advance. As shown in FIG. 13, a table that associates the time with the position is created in advance for each moving vehicle, and the position of the moving vehicle is estimated by referring to this table.

The output unit 108 outputs the obtained number of vehicles as the magnitude of traffic. At this time, as shown in FIG. 7, the map information and the road information can be displayed in a superimposed manner.

According to this embodiment, the image of the road can be obtained at a large number of spatially continuous points by moving the measuring points for obtaining the road information. By obtaining the traffic volume from this image and transmitting it to the outside, spatially comprehensive road information can be output to the road information output device. In addition, since the road information input device serving as a sensor is an on-vehicle type, it is easier to access for maintenance such as repairs and inspections as compared with the conventional method of installing near the road. In addition, by superimposing and outputting the map information and the road information, it is possible to visually grasp which position corresponds to what amount of traffic.

The above-described embodiment can be modified and implemented as follows.

First, the processing unit 103 of the road information input device 101 does not store only time and traffic information as road information in the road information storage unit 204, but when the same road is run in the past. It is also possible to specify the shooting location using the obtained time-series images and change the shooting location information to be added to the road information.

FIG. 8 shows a block diagram of the modified processing unit 103.

The timekeeping unit 202, the shooting location collation unit 801, the oncoming vehicle counting unit 203, the dictionary data storage unit 802, the measurement data storage unit 201, and the road information storage unit 204 are connected to the bus 20.
They are connected to each other via 0. Road information input device 1
The image input from the input unit 102 of 01 is the time counting unit 20.
The measurement data is stored in the measurement data storage unit 201 in a time series together with the time output by 2. Measurement data storage unit 201
Time-series images stored in the dictionary data storage unit 802
Using the dictionary data stored in, the shooting location collation unit 80
1, the shooting location is specified, and the oncoming vehicles are counted by the oncoming vehicle counting section 203 using the time-series images stored in the measurement data storage section 201, together with the time and place data of the counted section. Information on the number of vehicles is stored in the road information storage unit 204.

The process of specifying the shooting location will be described in detail below.

From time-series images obtained when the vehicle has traveled on the same road in the past, place names have been added to some images in advance as shown in FIG. 9 (a). FIG. 9 shows a characteristic region in which the image can be specified.
It is extracted as a characteristic window as shown in (b). Time-series images including these are called dictionary data. This dictionary data is stored in the dictionary data storage unit 802.

The shooting location collating unit 801 takes out the characteristic window of the image with the name of the first place which has not yet passed from the dictionary data storing unit 802 and shifts the position from the image stored in the measurement data storing unit 201. When matching is performed and the correlation is higher than a predetermined threshold value, it is considered that the image of the measurement data matches the image of the dictionary data at the shooting location. The result is stored in the road information storage unit 204 together with the time data.

In this way, the shooting location can be estimated at the same time only by shooting the image.

By using this function, the following modification of the embodiment is possible in connection with this.

In the processing unit 107, it is not necessary to specify the position of the moving vehicle based on the time of the moving vehicle by using the table corresponding to the position of the moving vehicle. It is also possible to use this table to change the shooting location to be specified in a narrower range. Further, it is also possible to verify and correct the processing result of specifying the shooting location using this table.

Further, the start and end of counting the number of vehicles can be designated by the passage of a certain determined point.
With this, the road information is obtained as information of a certain section, and thus the process of displaying the road information on the output unit in an overlapping manner with the map information is facilitated.

Further, a mask of an image as shown in FIG. 10 is prepared for each section, and the search range when the oncoming vehicle area is set in step 403 is limited to the area defined by this mask. As a result, it is possible to reduce malfunctions in which objects other than vehicles are erroneously counted.

Secondly, the road information output device 105 can be implemented as an on-vehicle type which can be mounted on a general vehicle. At this time, the number of vehicles equipped with the road information output device is not limited to one and may be plural. By performing the transmission from the road information input device to the road information output device in real time, the road information that changes from time to time can be obtained in real time by the general vehicle. Further, by using a navigation system using satellites, the output of the output unit can display the position of the vehicle equipped with the road information output device, if necessary. This allows
The driver of a general vehicle can select an appropriate road and estimate the arrival time based on the information on the traffic volume obtained in real time.

Thirdly, the road information input device 101 can be mounted on a route bus for implementation. At this time,
The number of route buses equipped with the road information input device is not limited to one, but may be multiple. The route bus has a fixed operating section and is regularly operated, so that road information can be constantly obtained. Further, by obtaining road information from a plurality of road information input devices, more comprehensive road information can be obtained.

Next, another embodiment of the road information system of the present invention will be described.

The other embodiment is roughly divided into a road information input device and a road information output device. FIG. 11 shows the configuration. The road information input device 1101 is a vehicle-mounted type,
The input unit 1102 is mounted on the moving vehicle 1100.
It has a transmitter 1103 as its constituent element. Input unit 11
In 02, a time-series image including at least information of the oncoming lane is taken by the camera and recorded. The transmitting unit 1103 transmits time series images.

The road information output device 1104 includes a receiver 11
05, a processing unit 1106, an output unit 1107. The receiving unit 1105 receives the time-series images transmitted from the transmitting unit of the road information input device. Processing part 110
At 6, road information such as traffic volume and shooting time is extracted from the obtained time series images. The output unit 1107 outputs the obtained road information.

The present embodiment is different in that the processing section in the road information input device in the above-described embodiment is incorporated in the road information output device.

Transmitter 110 of road information input device 1101
At 3, the time series images captured by the input unit 1102 are transmitted.

Receiving unit 110 of road information output device 1104
At 5, the time series image is received.

Processing unit 110 of road information output device 1104
The configuration of No. 6 is shown in FIG. Timing unit 1202, oncoming vehicle counting unit 1203, measurement data storage unit 1201, road information storage unit 1204, time / position correspondence table storage unit 1205
Are mutually connected via a bus 1200. The time series images received by the receiving unit 1105 of the road information output device 1104 are stored in time series in the measurement data storage unit 1201 together with the time output by the time counting unit 1202. Using the time-series images stored in the measurement data storage unit 1201, the oncoming vehicle counting unit 1203 counts oncoming vehicles, and the result is stored in the road information storage unit 1204 together with the time data.

The method of counting oncoming vehicles in the oncoming vehicle counting section 1203 is the same as the oncoming vehicle counting section 2 in the above-described embodiment.
This is the same as the method of counting oncoming vehicles in 03.

Using the table having the format shown in FIG. 13 stored in the time / position correspondence table storage unit 1205 of the processing unit 1106, the position of the moving vehicle is made to correspond from the time, and the result is set to the road. The information is stored in the information storage unit 1204.

The output unit 1107 outputs the obtained number of vehicles as the magnitude of traffic. At this time, the map information and the road information can be displayed in a superimposed manner. This output example is similar to that shown in FIG. 7.

According to this embodiment, the image of the road can be obtained at a large number of spatially continuous points by moving the measurement points for obtaining the image of the road. By transmitting this image to the outside and using it to generate road information,
Spatially comprehensive road information can be output to the road information output device. In addition, since the road information input device serving as a sensor is an on-vehicle type, it is easier to access for maintenance such as repairs and inspections as compared with the conventional method of installing near the road. In addition, by superimposing and outputting the map information and the road information, it is possible to visually grasp which position corresponds to what amount of traffic. In addition, since the road information input device does not include a device that performs processing such as counting vehicles,
The cost of the road information input device can be reduced.

The above-described embodiment can be modified and implemented as follows.

First, the processing unit 1106 of the road information output device 1104 does not store only time and traffic information as road information in the road information storage unit 1204. It is also possible to specify the shooting location using the obtained time-series images and change the shooting location information to be added to the road information.

FIG. 14 shows a block diagram of the modified processing unit 1106.

Timekeeping unit 1202, shooting location collation unit 140
1, oncoming vehicle counting unit 1203, dictionary data storage unit 140
2, measurement data storage unit 1201, road information storage unit 120
4, the time / position correspondence table storage unit 1205 is the bus 1
They are interconnected via 200. The time-series image received by the receiving unit 1105 of the road information output device 1104, together with the time output by the clock unit 1202,
The measurement data is stored in the measurement data storage unit 1201 in time series. Using the time-series images stored in the measurement data storage unit 1201 and the dictionary data stored in the dictionary data storage unit 1402, the shooting location collation unit 1401 identifies the shooting location, and further the measurement data storage unit 1201. The oncoming vehicle counting unit 1203 counts the number of oncoming vehicles using the time-series images stored in, and the road information storage unit 1204 stores information on the number of vehicles together with the time and place data of the counted section.

The processing for specifying the shooting location can be realized in the same manner as the processing for specifying the shooting location in the embodiment.

By using this function, the following modification of the embodiment is possible in connection with this. That is,
In the processing unit 1106, it is not necessary to specify the position by using the table that associates the position of the moving vehicle with the time of the moving vehicle. Also, using this table,
It is also possible to change so that the shooting location can be specified in a narrower range. Further, it is also possible to verify and correct the processing result of specifying the shooting location using this table.

Further, the start and end of counting the number of vehicles can be designated by the passage of a certain determined point.
With this, the road information is obtained as information of a certain section, and thus the process of displaying the road information on the output unit in an overlapping manner with the map information is facilitated.

Further, a mask of an image as shown in FIG. 10 is prepared for each section to limit the search range when setting the oncoming vehicle area. As a result, it is possible to reduce malfunctions in which objects other than vehicles are erroneously counted.

Secondly, the road information output device 1104 can be implemented as an on-vehicle type which can be mounted on a general vehicle. At this time, the number of vehicles equipped with the road information output device is 1.
There can be multiple units, not just one. By performing the transmission from the road information input device to the road information output device in real time, the road information that changes from time to time can be obtained in real time by the general vehicle. Further, by using a navigation system using satellites, the output of the output unit can display the position of the vehicle equipped with the road information output device, if necessary. As a result, the driver of the general vehicle can select an appropriate road and estimate the arrival time based on the information on the traffic volume obtained in real time.

Thirdly, the road information input device 1101 can be mounted on a route bus for implementation. At this time, there may be a plurality of route buses equipped with the road information input device, instead of only one. The route bus has a fixed operating section and is regularly operated, so that road information can be constantly obtained. Further, by obtaining road information from a plurality of road information input devices, more comprehensive road information can be obtained.

[0064]

According to the present invention, the image of the road can be obtained at a large number of spatially continuous points by moving the measuring points for obtaining the road information. By obtaining the traffic volume from this image and transmitting it to the outside, spatially comprehensive road information can be output to the road information output device. Also,
Since the road information input device that plays the role of a sensor is an in-vehicle type,
Access for maintenance such as repairs and inspections is easier than the conventional method installed near the road. Also,
By superimposing and outputting the map information and the road information, it is possible to visually grasp which position and how much traffic volume.

Further, according to the present invention, the road image can be obtained at a large number of spatially continuous points by moving the measurement points for obtaining the road image. By transmitting this image to the outside and using it to generate road information, spatially comprehensive road information can be output to the road information output device. In addition, since the road information input device serving as a sensor is an on-vehicle type, it is easier to access for maintenance such as repairs and inspections as compared with the conventional method of installing near the road. In addition, by superimposing and outputting the map information and the road information, it is possible to visually grasp which position corresponds to what amount of traffic. Further, since the road information input device does not include a device that performs processing such as vehicle counting, the cost of the road information input device can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processing unit.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a method of counting oncoming vehicles.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of counting oncoming vehicles.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a vehicle search area at time (t-1).

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a data format of an oncoming vehicle.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of an output example of an output unit.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a modified processing unit.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of dictionary data.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing an image mask.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory view of a processing portion of the second embodiment.

FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram showing a time / position correspondence table.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a processing unit according to a third embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 ... Moving vehicle, 101 ... Road information input device, 102
... input section, 103 ... processing section, 104 ... transmission section, 105 ...
Road information output device, 106 ... Receiving unit, 107 ... Processing unit,
108 ... Output unit.

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. An input unit that captures and records a time-series image including information of an oncoming lane with a camera, and a processing unit that processes and generates road information including information on traffic volume and shooting time from the time-series image. A vehicle-mounted road information input device including a transmission unit that transmits the road information, a reception unit that receives the road information, a processing unit that processes the road information, and an output unit that outputs the processed road information. A road information system comprising: a road information output device comprising: 2. The processing unit according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit of the road information input device specifies a shooting location by using a time-series image obtained when the vehicle has traveled on the same road in the past, and obtains information on the shooting location. Road information system included in road information. 3. A vehicle-mounted road information input device comprising an input unit for capturing and recording a time-series image including information of an oncoming lane with a camera, and a transmission unit for transmitting the time-series image, and the time-series. A road information output device comprising a receiving unit for receiving an image, a processing unit for processing and generating road information including information on traffic volume and shooting time from the time-series image, and an output unit for outputting the processed road information. A road information system comprising: 4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the processing unit of the road information output device identifies a shooting location by using a time-series image obtained when the vehicle traveled on the same road in the past, and the shooting location information. A road information system that includes road information. 5. The road information system according to claim 1, 2, 3, or 4, wherein the road information output device is located outside the moving vehicle equipped with the road information input device. 6. The method according to claim 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.
The road information system including the traffic volume information includes a number of vehicles in an oncoming lane counted by image processing from time-series images captured by a camera. 7. The road according to claim 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, wherein the road information output device is mounted on a general vehicle, and road information output to the output unit is corrected and updated in real time. Information system. 8. A road information system according to claim 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7, wherein a route bus is used for a moving vehicle equipped with the road information input device. 9. The road information system according to claim 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8, wherein the road information output device superimposes road information on map information and outputs it. 10. The road information system according to claim 9, wherein the position of a road information output device is further overlapped and outputted to the road information superimposed and outputted with the map information. 11. Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, or 10, the road information input device is 2
A road information system that operates simultaneously on more than one vehicle and outputs road information obtained from a plurality of road information input devices to a road information output device. 12. Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8. A road information system in which two or more of the road information output devices are simultaneously operated in 8, 9, 10 or 11.