ZA200509603B

ZA200509603B - System for determining the toll for the use of sections of a stretch of a road of a road network and corresponding method

Info

Publication number: ZA200509603B
Application number: ZA200509603A
Authority: ZA
Inventors: Aleksic Mario; Kerner Boris; Haug Andreas; Rehborn Hubert
Original assignee: Daimler Chrysler Ag
Priority date: 2003-05-30
Filing date: 2005-11-28
Publication date: 2006-10-25
Also published as: KR20060006976A; TW200515311A; JP2007503062A; DE10324572A1; WO2004107274A1; EP1629439A1

Description

® P802925/WO/1 . 2305709603

DaimlerChrysler AG

System for determining the toll for the use of sections of a stretch of a road of a road network and corresponding method

The invention relates to a system for determining toll charges for travel by a vehicle on sections of a road network, according to the precharacterizing clause of

Claim 1, and also to a method for implementation on such a system, according to the precharacterizing clause of Claim 9.

The apparatus on the vehicle side of such a system is described in DE 43 04 838 C2, of which the disclosure is incorporated herein by reference. In order to determine the usage charge, the apparatus arranged separately in the vehicle comprises a digital map of a road network, for example in the form of a CD or DVD, by using which the usage charge for the road network is determined in the vehicle. Furthermore, sensors for data acquisition are provided, for example a position determining means in the form of a GPS or Galileo satellite navigation system. In order to check and calculate the usage charge, the apparatus comprises a computing unit. In addition, in a vehicle-side apparatus operated in this way, a communications means is used to transmit toll data to a central traffic office. A system of this type, comprising a central traffic office and vehicles equipped with appropriate apparatus, is presented, for example, in DE 100 15 069

Al.

The object of the invention is to make a system for determining toll charges, comprising a central traffic office and vehicles equipped with appropriate apparatus, capable of more universal use, and to put the toll data transmitted to the central traffic office

. ( P802925/WO/1 to good use. It is likewise the object of the invention to specify a method for the more universal use of such a system.

According to the invention, this object is achieved with respect to the system by the features of Claim 1 and with respect to the method by the features of Claim 9. The subclaims relate to advantageous embodiments and developments.

The main idea of the invention is that means for allocating the toll-related data to individual sections of the road network and also means for determining dynamic traffic information for individual road sections from the associated toll-related data in the central traffic office are additionally provided.

Expressed in other words, the toll-related data which accumulate in any case in the central traffic office are transformed into dynamic traffic information by means of suitable further processing. This is effected by breaking down into the smallest ‘unit’ on which the toll-related data are based. This smallest unit is the road section as part of the road network subject to tolls. By means of the allocation according to the invention of the toll-related data from different vehicles subject to tolls to respectively individual road sections, the toll-related data from different vehicles subject to tolls can be compared directly with one another, in that common road sections can now be identified. Consequently, dynamic traffic information can be determined in the central traffic office without additional vehicle-side communications expenditure or additional vehicle-side means being needed.

Therefore, a form of data acquisition which provides a quasi blanket coverage for the sections of the road network subject to tolls is achieved. This permits, for example, locally accurate and, as a result of the

. @ P802925/WO/1 continuous transmission of toll-related data by the vehicles subject to tolls, also contemporaneous detection of disruptions on road sections subject to tolls, with only minimum additional expenditure. The vehicles subject to tolls are, for example, utility vehicles, the road sections subject to tolls are, for example, motorway sections. Of course, a use of the invention in conurbations or on rural roadways is likewise possible. The dynamic traffic information determined in the central traffic office can be used for an extremely wide range of mobility services, for example driver information systems, traffic-adaptive route calculation or driver assistance systems.

In an advantageous way, the road sections are delimited by entries, exits and/or toll points set up in the road network. Since the registration of tolls begins or ends at such positions, the toll-related data transmitted to the central traffic office for the purpose of monitoring include such a position as a time-associated vehicle position.

For a simple use of the dynamic traffic information determined, this is stored in a storage medium in the central traffic office. In this case, particularly little storage space is needed in the central traffic office if identical items of dynamic traffic information are stored in a collected form for contiguous road sections. Therefore, the “critical” road sections are filtered out of the toll-related data in targeted fashion, for example those with traffic disruption. Alternatively or additionally, storage of disrupted road sections is provided.

In a particularly preferred implementation of the invention, the dynamic traffic information is formed as journey times. Since the toll-related data comprise time-associated vehicle positions, journey times can be } Co

) ® P802925/W0O/1 determined particularly simply from these toll-related data, by the time interval (as the difference between two times) needed for one or more road sections (as the difference between two vehicle positions) being determined. For instance, from toll-related data from a vehicle which travels on a plurality of road sections, journey times for each individual road section can be determined particularly simply when there is free (undisrupted) traffic on the road sections. In this case, the total time interval for all the road sections travelled by the vehicle (as the difference between the times of exit and entry into the part of the road network subject to tolls) is simply placed in a relationship with the respectively known length of the individual road sections.

It is advantageous if a storage medium for storing journey trend lines is provided in the central traffic office. From the journey times determined from the associated toll-related data from the vehicles subject to tolls, a collection of journey trend lines of this type can be made by means of a statistical evaluation of the short-term journey time profile. Journey trend lines stored in this way can be used in many ways, for example for dynamic routing applications. The stored journey trend lines are preferably updated continuously.

It is advantageously proposed that the communications means be designed as mobile radio communications means.

A relatively inexpensive communications means of communication between vehicle-side apparatus and central traffic office which is available in a manner virtually providing blanket coverage is therefore available.

The dynamic traffic information is preferably generated by means of a comparison of toll-related data from at

: ~ ooo = @ P802925/W0O/1 . 2003 /08603 least two road sections from a first vehicle with toll- related data from a second vehicle, the toll-related data relating to at least one common road section. The toll-related data from the two vehicles can thus be compared directly with respect to the common road section. This comparison becomes even more precise if the toll-related data from the first and from the second vehicle lie in a comparable time interval, for example during the morning commuter traffic.

It is particularly advantageous if the dynamic traffic information for the at least one common road section is applied uniformly to the two vehicles. For example, the already known dynamic traffic information from the first vehicle is also applied to the at least one common road section of the second vehicle. Thus, dynamic traffic information for the road sections that are not common can be determined from the road-section- related data from the second vehicle. By means of this procedure, by using the known dynamic traffic information from the first vehicle with respect to the common section and the known dynamic traffic information with respect to the sum of the travelled road sections subject to tolls from the second vehicle, conclusions which are not covered by the dynamic traffic information from the first vehicle are drawn about the dynamic traffic information from the road section or sections subject to toll travelled by the second vehicle.

It is advantageously proposed that localized effective bottlenecks and/or time-space traffic patterns are calculated in the road network. Effective bottlenecks and time-space traffic patterns of this type are determined, for example, by methods as proposed in DE 196 47 127 C2, DE 198 35 979 Al, DE 199 44 077 Al or DE 199 44 075 Al. The dynamic traffic information determined from the associated toll-related data are in

} C P802925/WO/1 this case used for determining the local position of an effective bottleneck or of a time-space traffic pattern. Provision is preferably made to perform continuous detection of effective bottlenecks and/or time-space traffic patterns and/or a traffic forecast (trend forecast) from the continuously determined dynamic traffic information, which ensures continually up-to-date generation of variables characterizing the current traffic.

In an advantageous embodiment of the invention, event- dependent communication between the vehicle and the central traffic office is additionally provided. As a result, particularly rapid reporting, for example of a time-space traffic pattern which is occurring, from the vehicle to the central traffic office is possible.

In a further advantageous embodiment of the invention, communication between the central traffic office and the vehicle is provided. This permits the transmission of current dynamic traffic data, determined in the central traffic office, into the vehicle.

The invention will be explained in more detail using a drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 shows the principle of the invention in schematic form,

Fig. 2 shows the determination of associated journey times for individual road sections in a first case, in schematic form,

Fig. 3 shows the determination of associated journey times for individual road sections in a second case, in schematic form,

Fig. 4 shows the determination of associated journey times for individual road sections in a third case, in schematic form.

[ P802925/WO/1

The principle of the invention is illustrated in schematic form in Fig. 1. In the upper third of Fig. 1, a part of a road network subject to tolls is illustrated, the direction of travel proceeding from § left to right. The individual road sections are designated a section here and limited by network nodes, as can be obtained from a digital road map, for example. One of the network nodes is formed as an effective bottleneck. Before this effective bottleneck in the direction of travel, a time-space traffic pattern (illustrated by dashed lines) has currently formed. The central third of Figure 1 shows the dynamic traffic information, formed as journey times here, determined from the associated toll-related data from the vehicles subject to toll travelling this part of the road network. For each road section, a journey time has been determined from the associated toll- related data, designated continuously T; to Ts. The total journey time Tg for this part of the road network is thus given by the sum of the associated journey times, that is to say Tg = Ty + Tz + T3 + Tq + Ts. in the lower third of Fig. 1, current journey times are illustrated by way of example. In this case, the journey times Ti, T,, Ty, Ts correspond to an undisrupted travelling sequence, that is to say free traffic, and therefore have the value T¢ree- In this case, the value T¢ree Of course depends on the respective road section. By contrast, the journey time

Ty; is increased by the value Tiss by the time-space traffic pattern localized on the associated road section, which results in Ts: = Tfree + Tioss. It should further be noted that the journey times T; to Ts are given either by a determination according to Figure 2 to Figure 4, or by the procedure described below. In this case, for the purpose of determination, provision is made, for example, to set up and to solve a system of linear equations in which all toll-related data known are evaluated at a time.

( P802925/W0O/1

For the case in which the effective bottleneck is already known, for example from measurements with induction loops or from toll-related data acquired in the past, the current journey times T; to Ts can be derived from the toll-related data from a single vehicle which is travelling the illustrated part of the road network subject to toll, that is to say enters at the network node located on the furthest left and exits at the network node located on the furthest right. For oo this purpose, from the toll-related data transmitted from this vehicle to the central traffic office, the total journey time Ts for the road sections travelled by the vehicle is determined as the difference between the times of exit and entry into the part of the road network subject to tolls. This current total journey time Tg is divided up in such a way that an undisrupted traffic sequence is applied to all the road sections apart from the road section which, in the direction of travel, is delimited “behind” by the (already known) effective bottleneck. Therefore, T,, Ts, Ts, Ts respectively have the value Tiree, that is to say T, =

Ti frees T2 = Ta2,frees Ti = Ti free and Ts = Tyg free- The difference between Tg and Tg free, as the sum of Tiree for all the sections, that is to say Tg free = Ti,free + T2 free + Ti free + Ta free + Ts,free, 1S then set to Ticss and added to the journey time T;, with which Ti: = Tj free + Tioss-

Expressed in other words, the increased journey time currently occurring as compared with an undisrupted traffic sequence is attributed completely to the time- space traffic pattern formed before the effective bottleneck in the direction of travel.

Fig. 2 to Fig. 4 illustrate, for a preferred embodiment of the invention, the determination in the central traffic office of associated journey times for individual road sections in various cases, in schematic form. Here, in each case a motorway subject to tolls

Ck

® P802925/W0/1 with the junctions A, B, C, D will be considered, the letters of the junctions rising in the direction of travel. A road section is in each case delimited by two junctions. The vehicles subject to tolls send toll-related data to the central traffic office when they leave the motorway at a junction. These toll- related data comprise junction and time of “entering” the motorway subject to tolls and also the junction and time of “leaving” the motorway subject to tolls. The journey times along the motorway determined from associated toll-related data will be designated

R(p, gq, t) in the following text, for the journey from junction p to junction g and if a vehicle is at the junction p at the time t (“entry time”). In this case, a timing grid with grid size At is used for these journey times, assuming a constant journey time within the period from t to t + At, that is to say, for all the following ti, t = t; s t + At, which means that the designation R(p, gq, t) is equivalent to R(p, g, ti).

Fig. 2 illustrates the determination of associated journey times for individual road sections in a first case, in schematic form. Fig. 2 illustrates a part of a road network subject to tolls, comprising a plurality of road sections, here a motorway with four junctions

A, B, C, D. At the time t,, the two vehicles designated 1 and 2 join the motorway at junction A. Since they travel at approximately the same speed, they both arrive at junction B at the time t,. At the time t;, the vehicle 2 leaves the motorway and transmits toll- related data about the road section subject to tolls travelled by it (namely from junction A to junction B) to the central traffic office. In the central traffic office, dynamic traffic information in the form of journey times is determined from these toll-related data. Since the journey time determined relates only to an individual road section, no further allocation of these toll-related data is needed, the journey time is

. ® P802925/W0O/1 given by R(A, B, to) = ti; - to. At the time t,, vehicle 1 also leaves the motorway at junction C. Since the toll- related data transmitted by it relate to two road sections, an appropriate allocation of these toll- related data to individual road sections is necessary.

The toll-related data already transmitted by vehicle 2, from which the journey time between junction A and junction B was determined at the time t,, are set as the journey time with respect to the first road section of vehicle 1. There remains from the allocation of the toll-related data from vehicle 1 the road section from junction B to junction C. This journey time is therefore given by

R(B, C, ti) = R(A, C, to) - R(A, B, to) = tz - ti.

The above-described determination of associated journey times for individual road sections in a first case will now be represented in generalized form in pseudo-code with numbered lines. A motorway with the junctions 1 to n will be considered, the junction numbers rising in the direction of travel. Journey times along the motorway will be designated R(p, gq, t). The journey time applies to the travel from junction p to junction gq if the vehicle is at junction p at time t. It is true that p < gand p <n and 1 < gq s n. The journey times

R(p, p+1l, tt), p = 1 ... n-1, will be calculated at two successive junctions in each case. For the cases in which these journey times cannot be determined unambiguously, further journey times R(p, gq, t) with gq > p+l will be determined. At the system start at the time terare, before the processing of the first toll- related data, for the purpose of initialization R(p, p+l, t), p = 1 ... n-1 will be initialized with the journey time for free traffic for all t = tgrarr. All other journey times R(p, gq, t), g > p+l, will be identified as not present. In addition, it will be assumed that, in the central traffic office, all toll- related data with a time of exit from the motorway of 4

. ® P802925/W0O/1 tour, With tsrare < tour < to, have already been processed earlier. Toll-related data with exit times tp s tour < to+At are collected in the central traffic office and then, sorted by junction number of the exit and the exit time as a secondary sorting criterion, are processed as follows, the toll-related data Mk currently to be processed relating to the journey time

Rmp (Pmos Quo, tmp) : // Determine remaining section before dw with 10 still unknown journey time 20 P := Pm 30 t := tw 40 as long as there exists an R(p, i, t) with i < gw in the memory: 50 gq := largest i s gw, so that R(p, i, t) exists 60 t := t + R(p, gq, t) 70 Pp = dq 80 // Save the journey time of the remaining section 90 (if R(p, qw., t) already exists, plausibility check here or average with new value) 100 save R(p, Qw, t) = Rw (Pm, Uw, tm) - (£ - tm)

Fig. 3 illustrates how, when allocating the toll- related data from the vehicle 1, toll-related data previously transmitted from two different vehicles are taken into account. At the time ty, vehicle 1 and vehicle 2 travel onto the motorway at junction A at the same time. Vehicle 2 leaves the motorway at the time t; at junction B. While vehicle 1 travels on, at the same time t, a further vehicle 3 travels onto the motorway at junction B. At the time t,, vehicle 3 also leaves the motorway at junction C, while vehicle 1 is at the same level but still the motorway. Only at the time t; does vehicle 1 also leave the motorway at junction D.

When processing the toll-related data from vehicle 1, the journey time R(A, D, to) is shortened by taking account of the journey time R(A, B, tg) of vehicle 2 on the road sections from junction B to junction D ;

Co

. [ P802925/W0O/1 determined from the toll-related data from vehicle 2.

By taking account of the journey time R(B, C, ti) determined from the toll-related data from vehicle 3, the journey time of vehicle 1 on the road section from

Junction C to junction D is shortened further. This remaining journey time R(C, D, t;) is determined.

If, within each time period At at least one vehicle leaves the motorway at each junction, all the journey times R(p, p+l, t) can therefore be determined. If not, is not possible for all the toll-related data to be processed completely (this means Journey times between two adjacent junctions in each case can be determined) . The result is journey times R(p, 4, t) with gq > p+1 (that is to say relating to more than one road section). Such journey times can be broken down into individual road sections if at least two vehicles leave at the appropriate motorway exit within the time period At. This is illustrated in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4 shows how, at the time to, a vehicle 1 travels onto the motorway at junction A. At the time t,, the vehicle 1 is at junction B and there a vehicle 2 travels onto the motorway. At the time t,, vehicle 1 and vehicle 2 are at junction C. At junction C, vehicle 1 leaves, vehicle 2 remains on the motorway and a further vehicle 3 travels onto the motorway at junction C. At this time, first toll-related data are transmitted to the central traffic office from vehicle 1. These toll-related data relate to the journey time

R(A, C, to), that is to say the journey time from junction A to junction C. These toll-related data are therefore allocated to two road sections, namely the road section from junction A to junction B and the road section from junction B to junction C. A further breakdown of the two road sections is not yet possible at this time. At the time t;, the vehicles 2 and 3 then leave the motorway at the junction D. First of

. [ P802925/WO/1 all, the journey times are determined for the toll- related data from vehicles 2 and 3. At the time tj, two items of toll-related data are transmitted to the central traffic office. From these, a journey time

R(C, D, tz) is determined from the toll-related data transmitted from vehicle 3. The journey time from vehicle 2, which has likewise left at junction D at the time ti, but entered at an earlier junction than vehicle 3 (namely junction B), can therefore be allocated to road sections. This therefore gives the journey time R(B, C, ti). By using the journey time

R(B, C, ti.) determined, the journey time from vehicle 1 is allocated to individual road sections, the journey time R(A, B, to) resulting. Therefore, journey times have been determined for all the individual road sections.

The above-described determination of associated journey times for individual road sections in a third case will now also be represented in generalized form in pseudo- code with numbered lines: 10 for gw = n to 2 step -1 20 if, in the current interval, toll-related data relating to exit gw exist at least twice

ReverseCheck (Qmp, to) 100 Procedure ReverseCheck (gq, tarrival) 110 Find journey time R(p, q, t) with tarrival = t + R(p, gq, t) and largest possible p 30 120 with all stored journey times R(p’, gq, t’) with tarrival = t’ + R(p’, qa, t’) and p’' # p (same arrival time at gq), do the following (sorted in decreasing order of p’): 130 // Split R(p’', g, t’) into two portions 140 save R(p’, p, t’) = R(p’, q, tt’) - R(p, q, t) (if this journey time already exists, plausibility check here or average with new value) yr

. ® P802925/W0O/1 150 delete the original journey time R(p’, gq, t’) 160 if at least one R(p’, gq, t’) has been found 170 ReverseCheck (p,t) // p and t originate from the journey time R(p, dg, t) determined in line 110

Alternatively or in addition to the use of motorway junctions as a delimitation for a road section, provision is made to use electronic toll points (VDS: “Virtual Detection Sites”) set up permanently to delimit road sections. Furthermore, provision can be made to classify road sections differently, for example as “susceptible to disruption” and “not susceptible to disruption”. For the case in which a plurality of journey times have been determined for a road section, averaging can be provided, also excluding “outliers”.

Furthermore, the use of an individual average vehicle speed for undisrupted road sections (that is to say free traffic) can be provided.

Claims

~ n . PCT/EP2004/005321 ® 15 ! New claims

1. System for determining toll charges for travel by a vehicle on sections of a road network, comprising a central traffic office with a communications means and also at least one vehicle with apparatus comprising a communications means, a position determining means, a digital map of the road network and a computing unit, the payable toll charge for the road sections travelled by the vehicle being calculated in the computing unit from data from the position determining means and the digital map, and toll-related data comprising at least one time-associated vehicle position on a road section subject to tolls being transmitted from the communications means to the central traffic office, characterized in that means for allocating the toll-related data to individual road sections and also means for determining dynamic traffic information for individual road sections from the associated toll-related data are additionally provided in the central traffic office, with the dymamic traffic information being produced by comparing toll-related data from a first vehicle which relate to at least two road sections with toll-related data from a second vehicle, where the toll-related data relate to at least one common road section.

2. System according to Claim 1, characterized in that the critical road sections are filtered out of the toll-related data in targeted fashion. AMENDED SHEET a

PCT/EP2004/005321 ® °

3. System according to Claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the road sections are delimited by entries and/or exits and/or toll points set up in the road network.

4. System according to one of Claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the communications means are designed as mobile radio communications means.

5s. System according to one of Claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the dynamic traffic information is saved in a storage medium.

6. System according to Claim 5, characterized in that identical dynamic traffic information is saved in a collected form for contiguous road sections.

7. System according to one of Claims 1 to 6, characterized in that the dynamic traffic information is formed as journey times.

8. System according to Claim 7, characterized in that an increased journey time which occurs as compared with an uninterrupted traffic sequence is attributed to a time-space traffic pattern formed before an already known, effective bottleneck.

9S. System according to Claim 7 or 8, characterized in that a storage medium for saving journey trend lines is provided in the central traffic office.

10. Method for implementation on a system according to one of Claims 1 to 9, characterized in that the dynamic traffic information is generated by a comparison of toll-related data relating to at least two road sections from a first vehicle with toll-related data from a second vehicle, the toll- AMENDED SHEET : x

- “~. PCT/EP2004/005321 °® related data relating to at least one common road section. E 11. Method according to Claim 10, characterized in that the dynamic traffic information for the at least one common road section is applied uniformly to both vehicles and, in this way, dynamic traffic information for a road section which is not common can be determined from the road-section-related data from the first vehicle.

12. Method according to one of Claims 10 to 11, characterized in that effective bottlenecks and/or time-space traffic patterns localized in the road network are calculated.

13. Method according to one of Claims 10 to 12, characterized in that continuous detection of effective bottlenecks and/or time-space traffic patterns and/or a traffic forecast are provided.

14. Method according to one of Claims 10 to 13, characterized in that event -dependent communication from the vehicle to the central traffic office is provided.

15. Method according to one of Claims 10 to 14, characterized in that communication from the central traffic office to the vehicle is provided. AMENDED SHEET