JPH11224398A - Traffic information gathering and providing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To construct a dynamic navigation system stepwise and to reduce the processing burdens of a traffic control center by forming a signal transmission network for exchanging information gathered by information beacons as a road network among the adjacent beacons. SOLUTION: The information beacons (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g) and A arranged adjacently to each other are provided with a cover area for controlling respective traffic information and the cover area is partially overlapped. When a vehicle advances into respective communication areas, the information is bidirectionally exchanged by radio communication between the respective information beacons (a) A and the on-vehicle equipment of the vehicle. The signal transmission network 11 is formed among the adjacent information beacons (a)- A in a mesh shape, that is as the road network. Thus, the adjacent information beacons (a)- A are connected to each other and the adjacent information beacons (a)- A exchange the information with each other. Also, the information spread exceeding the adjacent information beacons (a)- A can be utilized as well.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a traffic information collecting and providing system, which is improved so that the processing load on a traffic control center can be reduced.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the necessity of automobiles as a means of transportation has increased, and maintenance of transportation networks and expansion of parking lots have been made. Here, a car is a destination,
Although there is an advantage that there is no restriction on the moving speed, the moving time, and the like, there is a problem that the traffic congestion, the geographical information is not provided, and the parking lot is insufficient.

[0003] Therefore, research on a so-called navigation system is being advanced as a means for quickly and safely and efficiently leading a car to a destination. There are various types of navigation systems, and each system is composed of a combination of a technology for measuring the position of a vehicle and a technology for selecting a route from the position to a destination.

[0004] When the navigation systems are classified according to the position measurement method, they can be divided into three types: self-contained navigation, close proximity wireless navigation, and satellite navigation. In the self-contained navigation, the traveling locus of the vehicle is calculated by using an azimuth sensor and an odometer mounted on the vehicle, but there is a problem that errors of the azimuth sensor and the distance meter are accumulated.

For this reason, a map matching method has been proposed in which a running locus is pattern-matched to a road map to cancel an accumulated error. However, even in the case of map matching, it was not possible to cope with the case of traveling by ferry or the like.

[0006] In the close proximity wireless navigation, the self-contained navigation is modified externally. That is, a position beacon indicating the coordinates of the point is installed at a key point on the road, each vehicle is equipped with a device that receives a signal from this position beacon, and a signal from the position beacon is used to perform self-contained navigation. This is a method for canceling the accumulated error of. Satellite navigation is GPS (Grobal Pos
itioning System), and receives signals from three or four orbiting satellites with a receiver mounted on the vehicle,
The position of the vehicle is measured by measuring the propagation delay time.

[0007] Of the above navigation systems, close proximity wireless navigation requires ground equipment and thus costs are increased. However, not only location information from a location beacon but also road information and traffic information that change every moment are required. It is possible to provide dynamic information to the vehicle in real time, and conversely, to collect road and traffic information from the vehicle (such a beacon is sometimes referred to as an information beacon in distinction from a position beacon), Most promising in the future.

In order to collect and provide dynamic information as described above, a traffic control center that intensively processes information such as roads and traffic collected from information beacons as ground equipment is required. Further, an on-vehicle device for displaying information from the traffic control center and assisting in route selection is required as a vehicle facility.

[0009] For this reason, a navigation system including such a traffic control center and a vehicle-mounted device is sometimes referred to as a dynamic navigation system or a road-to-vehicle traffic information collection / distribution system in distinction from the above-described navigation system. Here, in the dynamic navigation system, a hierarchy type as shown in FIG. 7 has been proposed.

In the hierarchy type, information from a large number of information beacons 1 is concentrated on one traffic control center 3 via a plurality of sub-centers 2 provided on the way. Further, since the information is generally insufficient with the information beacon 1 alone, the information is also concentrated on the traffic control center 3 via the sub-center 2 from the vehicle detector 1a. The vehicle detectors 1a are installed at each point on the road, measure traffic volume and occupancy (occupancy), and use them for estimating traffic congestion and the like.

The most important information collection in this dynamic navigation system is travel time information. This travel time information is measured as the time required for a certain vehicle to travel from a certain position beacon to the next position beacon, and the travel time is integrated along a certain route from the departure point to the destination value to obtain the destination. The time to reach can be predicted.

Traffic information can be divided into district information 4, wide area information 5, and important information 6 according to the geographical form as shown in FIG. FIG. 8 conceptually shows traffic information. The district information 4 indicates the radius 10 of the vehicle.
It is traffic information such as current traffic jam and travel time within km.

The wide area information 5 is traffic information such as traffic congestion and travel time for a trunk within a radius of 100 km of the vehicle, and predicts the time when the vehicle has arrived there. Since the important information 6 is difficult to predict when the radius of the vehicle is more than 100 km, the important information 6 is regulation information such as road closure on an arterial road, and is artificially input from the traffic control center.

[0014] Such information changes as the current position of the vehicle changes. In the figure, reference numeral 7 denotes a communication area of the information beacon, which has a radius of about 30 m. Here, the majority of the information generally required is the district information 4 as shown in FIG. 9, and the wide area information 5 is not so large.
The important information 6 is very small.

[0015]

If the dynamic navigation system has a hierarchal structure, information such as traffic information is concentrated at the traffic control center, and information such as traffic information is diffused from the traffic control center. Simple. However, since information such as traffic information is intensively processed in the traffic control center, the amount of information processing in the traffic control center becomes enormous, and an ultra-large computer is required.

For this reason, there is a problem that the dynamic navigation system cannot be partially operated until the entire configuration is constructed. In addition, since a super-large computer is required, there is a problem that the cost is increased.

Furthermore, even for a very large computer,
In a time zone in which requests for providing information from a large number of vehicles are concentrated, the processing capacity may be exceeded and processing may not be possible, or the processing time may be long. In addition, when a dedicated line is laid for transmitting information between the information beacon and the traffic control center, the total length of the line becomes extremely long, and the laying cost is enormous.

The present invention has been made in view of the above prior art, and provides a traffic information collecting and providing system capable of constructing a dynamic navigation system step by step and reducing a processing load on a traffic control center. The purpose is to provide.

[0019]

According to the structure of the present invention to achieve the above object, a large number of information beacons are arranged on a road, and the information beacon and a vehicle-mounted device communicate by radio. In a road-to-vehicle traffic information collection and provision system that collects information such as information and provides the processed information to the vehicle-mounted device of the vehicle by wireless communication from the information beacon, the information collected by the information beacon is exchanged. A signal transmission network is formed as a road network between the adjacent beacons.

<Operation> Since adjacent information beacons are interconnected by a signal transmission network which is a road network, information such as traffic information obtained by each information beacon is mutually exchanged via the signal transmission network. Will be done.
As a result, the information can be used in the in-vehicle device of the vehicle by the information beacon without the information being concentrated at the traffic control center.

[0021]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to embodiments shown in the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the figure, information beacons a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and A arranged adjacent to each other indicate a coverage area (indicated by a circle in the figure) that controls each traffic information. This cover area partially overlaps.

The interval at which the information beacons a to A are arranged is 2
About 3 km is considered appropriate. Although omitted in the figure, a large number of such information beacons a and b are further arranged around the information beacon A. The communication area of these information beacons a to A is about 30 m, and when a vehicle (not shown) enters each communication area, both the information beacons a to A and the on-board device of the vehicle communicate with each other by wireless communication. Information is exchanged in the direction.

For example, the beacon numbers of the passing information beacons a to A and the time of passing the information beacons a to A are transmitted from the information beacons a to A to the on-vehicle device of the vehicle. It is stored in the vehicle-mounted device, and the time is measured by a timer. In addition, the beacon numbers of the information beacons a to A passed last time and the time measured by the timer from the time of last passing to the time of passing this time are transmitted from the in-vehicle device of the vehicle to the information beacons a to A.

Thus, in each of the information beacons a to A,
The travel time between the information beacons is calculated based on the distance between the information beacons. The travel time obtained here is between the information beacons a to A. In order to obtain a more accurate travel time, a link method may be used. In this link method, a route between information beacons is divided into a plurality of sections for each intersection (each section is referred to as a link), and a link number for recognizing each link and a time for passing through each link are respectively set in a vehicle. It is measured by the timer of the in-vehicle device.

These measured times are output to the information beacons a to A when passing through the information beacons a to A together with the link numbers. The information beacons a to A calculate travel times (hereinafter, referred to as link costs) for a plurality of links between the beacons. The distance for the link may be given to the information beacons a to A in advance.

Here, in order to realize the link system, it is necessary to provide information such as a link position and a number together with map information to the on-vehicle device in advance. It is desirable to provide a processing circuit for determining the value. Further, the above information beacons a to A
Are mutually connected by a signal transmission network 11, and signal data is transmitted / received between adjacent information beacons a to A via the signal transmission network 11.

The signal transmission network 11 is formed in a mesh between adjacent information beacons a to A, that is, as a road network. For example, dedicated line, public line or LAN
(Local Area Network) should be used. As described above, the adjacent information beacons a to A are mutually connected by the signal transmission network 11, so that the adjacent information beacons a to A exchange information with each other.

Therefore, when a vehicle passes two information beacons, for example, from a to b and from b to A, the travel time including a plurality of link costs is transmitted from the information beacon passed this time to the information beacon passed last time. Will be different.
As a result, the links between the information beacons are aggregated into information beacons that are in charge of each cover area.

Further, information is aggregated from the adjacent information beacons a to g via the information transmission network 11 to the information beacon A (hereinafter, this information beacon A is distinguished from the others to be a medium-sized information beacon). A). Therefore, the link cost of the area where the cover areas of the information beacons a to A are aggregated (hereinafter, referred to as a service area) is totally aggregated in the medium-sized information beacon A. The service area usually has a radius of about 10 km.

Therefore, it is possible to use information attached to information that extends over adjacent information beacons a to A.
For example, although the information beacon b and the information beacon e are not adjacent to each other, the link costs included in these cover areas are aggregated in the medium-sized information beacon A, so the information is obtained from the medium-sized information beacon A and provided. It is possible to

Further, even if adjacent information beacons are not connected by an information transmission network, for example, information beacons b and c exchange information via a medium-scale information beacon A. Become. Here, the signal data transmitted and received by the signal transmission network 11 is composed of the district information 4 and the wide area information 5 as shown in FIG.

Here, the district information 4 is mainly the link cost, and also includes other traffic information.
The wide area information 5 is mainly the link cost for a main road, and also includes other traffic information. The district information 4 is the majority of the signal data, and is used by being transmitted and received between the medium-scale information beacon A and the adjacent information beacons a to g.

When the communication data transmitted from the information beacon a to the information beacon b is transferred to the medium-sized information beacon A via the information beacon b, the communication data includes the information 8 from itself. Add and send.
On the other hand, the wide area information 5 is used beyond the service area unlike the area information, and requires a certain information processing.

Therefore, in the present invention, as shown in FIG. 3, the medium-sized information beacon A and the traffic control center 3 are connected to the signal transmission line 1.
5 and a circuit is provided in the medium-scale information beacon A to separate the wide-area information from the information collected from the information beacons a to g, and the wide-area information is transmitted to the traffic control center 3 by the signal transmission line 15. I try to concentrate. In the hierarchy type described in the related art, all information is concentrated and processed in the traffic control center 3, but in the present embodiment, only wide area information of the information is concentrated in the traffic control center 3. .

For this reason, the mere district information 4 is not collected in the traffic control center 3, and the burden on the traffic control center 3 is reduced.
Here, the wide area information 5 has a radius of 10 over the service area.
Since the traffic control center 3 is used within a range of about 0 km, the traffic control center 3 performs, for example, a process such as a process of predicting a link cost after the vehicle arrival time as information processing.
The important information 6, for example, information such as the closure of a main trunk line may be input to the traffic control center 3 and distributed to the medium-sized information beacon A, which may be provided to each vehicle.

When the number of medium-sized information beacons A is large, a sub-center may be provided between the traffic control center 3 and the medium-sized information beacons A to consolidate the lines. The wide area information aggregated in the traffic control center 3 is subjected to a certain process, and then sent to each of the information beacons a to g via the reverse route to the above, and distributed to the in-vehicle device of the vehicle. Therefore, the link cost for the section exceeding the service area is displayed on the in-vehicle device of each vehicle after being subjected to processing such as prediction by the traffic control center 3.

Next, specific examples of the information beacons a to g, the medium-sized information beacon A, and the vehicle-mounted device will be described. FIG.
Shows an example of information beacons a to g. As shown in FIG. 1, the information beacons a to g include a control circuit 12, a transmission / reception circuit 13, an arithmetic circuit 14, and the like. Transmission / reception circuit 13
Performs wireless communication with an in-vehicle device of the vehicle, and the arithmetic circuit 14 averages travel time information between beacons, in particular, link costs.

The data required for the operation in the operation circuit 14 is R
It is stored in AM16. Further, the traffic information obtained by the arithmetic circuit 14 and the like is transmitted by the control circuit 12 as signal data to the adjacent information processing beacon via the signal transmission network 11. On the other hand, the medium-scale information beacon A has the configuration of the information beacon as shown in FIG.
a, a wide area information separation circuit 17b is added.

The adjacency information aggregating circuit 17a is a circuit for aggregating information collected from the information beacons a to g adjacent to the medium-scale information beacon A, and the information such as the link cost in the service area is collected by the circuit 17a. Will be able to be provided. The wide area information separation circuit 17b is a circuit that separates only the wide area information from the information collected from the information beacons a to g and concentrates the wide area information on the traffic control center 3 via the signal transmission line 15. Comprehensive information is available.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 6, the on-vehicle apparatus comprises a control circuit 18, an arithmetic circuit 19, a transmission / reception circuit 20, an external storage device 21, a display 22, a timer 23 and the like. The timer 23 measures the transit time between beacons. The transmission / reception circuit 20 performs wireless communication between information beacons, and the calculation circuit 19 calculates travel time information and link cost between beacons. Further, the external storage device 21 stores a CD-ROM storing map information and the like.
It is preferable to use a ROM or the like.

The display 22 displays the processing results for the district information 4 and the wide area information 5. In this embodiment, the traffic control center 3 is provided as shown in FIG. 3, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the traffic control center 3 is omitted, and its functions are distributed to medium-sized information beacons. Good. For example, instead of the wide area information separating circuit 17b, it is preferable to provide a wide area processing circuit capable of distributing the function of the traffic control center 3 for information processing.

In this way, by installing the medium-sized information beacon A partially before the traffic control center 3 is constructed, it is possible to construct a dynamic navigation system in stages. In particular, when a plurality of medium-sized information beacons A are installed, if the wide-area processing circuits are interconnected so that information can be exchanged, the information can be used beyond the service area, which is more advantageous.

Further, the information in the service area can be used simply by omitting the medium-sized information beacon A and interconnecting the adjacent information beacons a to g via the information transmission network 11. This is effective in the initial construction stage of the dynamic navigation system.

[0044]

As described above in detail with reference to the embodiments, the present invention connects information beacons to each other via an information transmission network, which is a road network, so that the traffic control center can transmit information to the traffic control center. Can be used in the in-vehicle device of the vehicle by the information beacon without concentration.
Therefore, a dynamic navigation system can be constructed step by step, and information can be processed smoothly, so that highly accurate travel time information can be provided. Further, since the adjacent information beacons are connected via the information transmission network, when a dedicated line is used, the total length thereof can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram illustrating a traffic information collection and provision system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of signal data.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a relationship between an information processing beacon and a traffic control center.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of an information beacon.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of a medium-scale information beacon.

FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of an in-vehicle device.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a hierarchical navigation system.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram in which traffic information is separated according to a geographical form.

FIG. 9 is a graph showing the utility value of traffic information.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Information beacon 2 Subcenter 3 Traffic control center 1a Vehicle sensor 4 District information 5 Wide area information 6 Important information 11 Signal transmission network 12,18 Control circuit 13,20 Transmission / reception circuit 14,19 Operation circuit 15 Signal transmission path 16 RAM 17a Neighbor information Aggregation circuit 17b Wide area information separation circuit 21 External storage device 22 Display device 23 Timer a, b, c, d, e, f, g Adjacent information beacon A Medium-scale information beacon

Claims (1)

[Claims] An information beacon is provided on a road, and information such as traffic information is collected by performing wireless communication between the information beacon and an in-vehicle device of a vehicle. In a road-to-vehicle traffic information collection and provision system provided to an on-vehicle device of the vehicle by wireless communication from an information beacon, a signal transmission network for exchanging information collected by the information beacon is formed as a road network between adjacent beacons. A traffic information collection and provision system characterized by the following.