Traffic profiling and road conditions-based trip time computing system with localized and cooperative assessment

Abstract

This invention localizes traffic condition detection and classification to a vehicle. Vehicles work cooperatively to fuse their traffic condition assessments so as to produce larger geographical coverage and more reliable evidence of the conditions. The system can be executed on an onboard device which includes at least one of the following: GPS capabilities, connection connected to the vehicle to measure vehicle speed, or communication with a cell phone. In the example of the cell phone, speed can be computed from phone GPS, a GPRS/CDMA, or both. Otherwise, vehicle speed can be determined obtained from in-vehicle on-board diagnostic system (e.g. using the OBD-II protocol) or based on GPS and accelerometer readings.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A traffic measuring system comprising:
 a location-determining device;   a speed limit database storing speed limits for a plurality of road segments;   a speed-determining device for determining a current speed of the system; and   a processor determining a current location of the system, including a current road segment from the location-determining device, the processor determining a speed limit of the current road segment, the processor comparing the current speed of the system to the speed limit of the current road segment to determine a traffic condition.   
     
     
         2 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 1  wherein the location-determining device includes a GPS receiver. 
     
     
         3 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 2  wherein the speed-determining device includes the GPS receiver. 
     
     
         4 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 1  wherein the processor further reports the traffic condition to a server remote from the traffic measuring system. 
     
     
         5 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 4  wherein the processor requests traffic information from the server for road segments other than the current road segment. 
     
     
         6 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 5  wherein the processor requests traffic information from the server for road segments based upon a current direction of travel of the system and based upon the current location of the system. 
     
     
         7 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 4  wherein the system communicates the traffic information via voice. 
     
     
         8 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 7  wherein the processor performs an abstraction of the traffic information from the server and then communicates the abstracted traffic information via voice. 
     
     
         9 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 8  wherein the processor is programmed to determine a route to a destination, the processor requesting traffic information based upon the route. 
     
     
         10 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 1  installed on a vehicle. 
     
     
         11 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 1  further including a server remote from the traffic measuring system, wherein the processor reports the traffic condition to the server, wherein the location-determining device, the speed limit database, the speed-determining device and the processor are part of an onboard device on a vehicle, the system including a plurality of onboard devices on a plurality of vehicles, each reporting traffic conditions to the server. 
     
     
         12 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 11  wherein the server receives traffic conditions from a plurality of sensors other than the onboard devices and wherein the server weights the traffic conditions from the sensors differently from the traffic conditions reported by the onboard devices. 
     
     
         13 . The traffic measuring system of  claim 11  wherein the onboard devices further includes transceivers for sending traffic conditions directly to one another. 
     
     
         14 . A method for measuring traffic including the steps of:
 a) determining a current location of a vehicle;   b) determining a current speed limit based upon the current location of the vehicle;   c) determining a current speed of the system; and   d) comparing the current speed of the system to the current speed limit to determine a traffic condition;   wherein said steps a-d) are performed on the vehicle.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14  further including the step of reporting the traffic condition to a remote server. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15  further including the step of merging the reported traffic condition with reported traffic conditions from other vehicles. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16  further including the steps of receiving voice description of traffic from a user in the vehicle and wherein determining a traffic condition further includes determining a traffic condition based upon the voice description of traffic from the user. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17  further including the steps of abstracting numerical traffic condition information to generate speech to report the traffic condition to a user in the vehicle. 
     
     
         19 . A method for measuring traffic including the steps of:
 a) receiving a spoken description of a traffic condition;   b) receiving a location of the traffic condition;   c) parsing the spoken description of the traffic condition to determine the traffic condition; and   d) associating the traffic condition with the location, based upon said step c).   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 19  further including the steps of receiving a plurality of spoken descriptions from a plurality of different users, parsing the plurality of spoken descriptions to determine a plurality of traffic conditions and merging the plurality of traffic conditions. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 19  further including the steps of receiving a request for traffic condition information, and performing an abstraction of the traffic condition associated with the location and then communicating the abstracted traffic condition via speech.