EP1079353B1 - Method for requesting and processing traffic messages - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for requesting and for processing traffic information, in which a traffic-information query is transmitted by a mobile transceiver, and at least one traffic message is provided by a service provider via a base station, the traffic message being transmitted as a brief coded message. Information about the version of the stored data or data groups in the memory allocated to the mobile transceiver, and/or the manufacturer of the stored data or data groups and/or the issue date of the stored data or data groups is transmitted to the base station in the traffic-information query, so that in the return message of the traffic information, the base station can undertake the coding in such a way that the coded data can be well utilized on the basis of the stored data in the vehicle. In this manner, even given changing data, it is ensured in all events that the mobile transceiver is able to interpret the coded traffic messages.

Description

The invention is based on a method for requesting and processing traffic reports according to the type of the main claim.

From WO 98/26396 a method and an arrangement for informing mobile subscribers have already become known. In this case, data are transmitted between a central unit or a mobile subscriber unit on request and / or automatically. These data are intended in particular to transmit traffic information to the mobile subscriber. Basically, two ways are possible. On the one hand, the central station gives the mobile subscriber all the information about traffic management, so that the road user is completely dependent on the information from the central office. The other possibility is to be seen in the fact that the road user carries a navigation device on board his vehicle, by means of which it is possible to obtain traffic management from the given current position to a target position. In this case, the control center is only used to transmit traffic information of this type from the control center that could lead to a hindrance to the journey, in particular traffic jams, road closures, diversions or weather-related disruptions. This information can either be transmitted in plain text or in a reduced form, only codes being transmitted, and these codes then being combined in the receiver to form complete messages. Such a measure is described for example in DE-OS 35 36 820. To send and receive the information, a radio must be available for each participant, which enables both the transmission of messages and the reception of messages. Such a radio device can be, for example, a customary mobile radio device, as described in DE 196 51 143 A1, but it can also be transmitters that send information to a central station on a specific frequency and, for example, radio receivers operating in the Are able to receive customized messages. In this case, after processing the request, the control center can then broadcast the information via a radio transmitter and, on the basis of the individual identifier, ensure that the message can only be evaluated by the recipient who is appropriately individualized.

The invention is defined in independent claim 1.

Advantages of the invention

The measure according to the invention has the advantage that the information transmitted to the control center ensures that the coded traffic messages must also be evaluated in the vehicle, since the version number transmitted ensures that the information transmitted back from the control center is also in the vehicle Vehicle can be evaluated with the data available there. Misinformation or incorrect information that relates to incorrect or missing versions of the saved data will be avoided.

Advantageous further developments and improvements of the method indicated in the main claim result from the subclaims. So it is advantageous that several data groups for different geographic regions are stored in the memory. This measure ensures that the vehicle with the device in a larger geographical area, eg. B. in addition to Germany in France, Great Britain and the Benelux countries, is able to evaluate and process coded traffic reports. Another advantage is that several data groups with different levels of detail are stored in the memory for a geographical region. This measure ensures that further and more detailed information is made available, for example for certain regions, for example tourist regions or large cities. If traffic information is requested, this more detailed information available can be taken into account in a response from the base station.

It is also favorable that the version and / or the manufacturer and / or the date of issue of the traffic request is transmitted separately for each data group, hereinafter referred to as data group information. These measures ensure that, even if, for example, the stored data is expanded, for example regionally, through purchase, traffic information that can be evaluated is always made available, regardless of how old the stored data are with respect to the different regions.

Furthermore, it is advantageous to transmit information with the traffic message request as to whether or not the radio receiver with the navigation device is able to evaluate several data groups at the same time. In the case of simpler devices in particular, there is the problem that only traffic reports can be evaluated using one data group at a time. It is therefore not sensible if the base station transmits traffic information during a transmission that requires several data groups for evaluation, since evaluation in a given reaction time is then no longer possible. Only information that can be evaluated with a data group is then sent back from the base station.

It is also advantageous that the traffic report request is sent on request. This ensures that the user has in his hand how often and how often he wants to query traffic news. In particular, if he ascertains after a query that traffic obstructions are not to be expected, it is often sufficient that renewed queries are only necessary after a longer driving time. The user of the device is therefore able to send the queries according to his wishes.

It is also favorable to make the traffic announcement request at predetermined time intervals. This measure relieves the driver of a vehicle. He does not always have to think about whether a new traffic announcement is required. Rather, depending on the route traveled or according to time requirements, a query for traffic obstructions is carried out so that the driver is constantly informed about the current traffic situation, in particular about new disabilities on the roads, without having to think about it himself.

It is also advantageous to calculate a route from an instantaneous point to a destination based on the traffic reports received. The traffic jams and disabilities that were transmitted due to the traffic request are taken into account when determining the route. It is also advantageous not to transmit all traffic reports that correspond to the query criteria, but only those traffic reports that lie in a predefined corridor between the current point and the destination point. The result is that the number of traffic reports will continue to be restricted, whereby care must be taken that the corridor is chosen in such a way that possible and sensible bypasses are also recorded.

It is also favorable that the location code is transmitted together with the version from the base station when several data groups in the radio or navigation device are evaluated. This ensures that even with extensive geographical areas, eg. B. Germany and France, a clear assignment of the location is achieved so that French locations are assigned to the French data group and German locations to the German data group.

drawing

An embodiment of the invention is shown in the drawing and explained in more detail in the following description. FIG. 1 shows a mobile vehicle radio device and a central radio transceiver, FIGS. 2 to 4 the structure of the data word that is sent from the mobile subscriber to the control center, FIGS. 5 to 7 the structure of the data word that is sent from the control center to the mobile subscriber and FIG. 8 shows a possible division of data groups.

Description of the embodiment

FIG. 1 shows a mobile radio device 4 installed in a vehicle, not shown, which is capable of transmitting and receiving radio transmissions via an antenna 5. Under a mobile device z. B. to understand radios that work according to the GSM or AMPS standard, but also individualized radio receivers, eg. B. DAB receivers that have a return channel, or where the transmission of the transmission signal takes place on another mobile radio channel. The mobile radio device 4 is connected to a navigation device 6, the navigation device 6 being able to determine a route based on the current location of a vehicle and an entered destination, which the vehicle has to drive. For this purpose, the navigation device 6 is connected to a mass storage device 7. The mass storage device 7 contains, in digital form, information about roads of a specific geographical area. The memory also contains in data groups information for evaluating traffic messages transmitted in coded form, these traffic messages being received in coded form in the radio receiver 4. Details of this are described in DE-OS 35 36 820. Furthermore, information about the location codes of the coded transmitted traffic messages and their linkage with the location codes of the digital map are stored in the memory 7 in the data groups. FIG. 1 also shows a base station 2, which is capable of receiving radio signals from the mobile radio device 4 and sending messages back to the mobile radio device 4 via an antenna 3. In addition to a mobile radio base station of a mobile radio network, the base station can also be a Broadcasting stations, e.g. B. A DAB transmitter that can send out individualized messages, with a return channel receiver or a mobile radio receiver. The base station 2 is connected to a memory 1, information about traffic disturbances and traffic obstructions being read into the memory 1, coded and transmitted for transmission Will be provided.

If the driver of a vehicle starts a journey and has entered a destination in his navigation system, a connection to the base station 2 is established either manually, if the driver has set this, for example at the push of a button, or automatically by the user of the mobile device 4.

A radio telegram according to FIG. 2 is now sent to the base station 2. The radio telegram according to FIG. 2 has a header 10, by means of which the base station can recognize which type of messages are requested by whom. Furthermore, the message according to FIG. 2 has a field for data type 11. The data type 11 indicates how the data part 12 and 13 of the radio telegram is structured from the mobile station to the base station. On the basis of this information, the base station is now able, on the one hand, to identify the station to be transmitted and, on the other hand, to recognize the request profile. The transmitted radio telegram is evaluated in accordance with data type 11 by the corresponding service provider in the base station.

The data part 12 is shown in more detail in FIG. 3. In the exemplary embodiment, the data part 12 comprises a field 15 which indicates how many data groups are stored in the memory 7. Field 16 indicates whether one or more data groups are allowed when the traffic reports are sent back for evaluation. Act it Only simple recipients who are unable to ensure the evaluation of traffic reports on the basis of several data groups are transmitted in data field 16 that only one data group may be used to generate the traffic messages. The fact that only one data group can be used also arises if only a single data group, for example the location codes, and the road connections from Germany are stored in the memory 7. Data field 17 and 18 contains data group information. If only one data group is stored in the memory 7 and only one data group is permitted due to the data field 15, only one data group information is transmitted in the data field 17. If two data group information are permitted, two data group information are transmitted, and several data groups are permitted, the data fields 17 and 18 can be supplemented by further data fields. The data field 15 must be consistent with the number of data group information in the data fields 17, 18 and following. If the traffic report can only be evaluated with one data group when transmitting mobile radio devices, this is indicated in field 16.

In FIG. 2, the data word is supplemented by a further data field 13, through which further information is to be transmitted. The other information that can also be transmitted is e.g. B. to information about the intended use of toll roads, and / or the type of vehicle and information about the current location of the vehicle and the desired destination.

The content of data fields 17 or 18 is shown in detail in FIG. At version 19, the version number of the data group, which is stored in memory 7, is transmitted. On Position 20 stores the issue date on which this data group was issued. The manufacturer of the data group is entered at position 21 in order to be able to distinguish different manufacturers with specific differences in one and the same data group. The manufacturer's version number is given at position 22. This information ensures that the devices in the vehicle are able to reliably decode the traffic reports on the part of the mobile radio device. While it can usually be assumed that a service provider knows the data groups in different versions and from different manufacturers, the vehicle devices will usually have different data groups depending on the age of the vehicle, the manufacturer of the navigation device or the vehicle manufacturer, with regard to their content and their age. Since roads are constantly being added and other roads are no longer used, and the names of place names are frequently changed, if the vehicle has an older version of a data group stored, it is no longer possible to evaluate the information from the service provider if the base station has traffic information a newer version of the tables of the data groups have been created. By transmitting the version numbers, the manufacturer of the corresponding version and the creation data, it is possible to ensure that the service provider only transmits data that can be evaluated by the vehicle device. On the other hand, data are not transmitted for which there are either no data groups in the vehicle device or where their evaluation is hindered. It does not make sense if a vehicle z. B. is located in the border area between Germany and France, and the driver intends to drive to France, information about to transmit French traffic obstacles if the data tables in the vehicle receiver are not suitable for evaluating traffic information in French territory. On the other hand, it does not make sense to transmit data if, due to its simple design, the vehicle receiver is only able to evaluate information from a single data group as part of a data telegram. In this case, even if the vehicle receiver contains both the French and the German data table, it is not expedient to transmit mixed German and French traffic information. This may be prevented by the information in data field 16.

FIG. 5 shows the data word which is broadcast by the service provider via the base station 2 after it has received and evaluated the data word according to FIG. 2. The data field 25 contains the header which, for example, contains the destination address as information, ie for which mobile radio station the message is intended. The number of transmitted messages is indicated in field 26, so that the mobile radio device can recognize when the message is complete. Field 27 indicates which data group in memory 7 the radio receiver 4 must access in order to be able to evaluate the following information. This information corresponds to the information sent by the mobile radio device 4 in field 19 to the base station. This field is particularly important if the radio receiver is only able to evaluate only one data group when transmitting a message or if only one data group is stored in the memory 7. Traffic messages are now transmitted in field 28, which further fields 29 can follow if more than one traffic message is to be transmitted.

FIG. 6 shows in detail how the field 28 or further fields 29 are structured in detail. The location code of a traffic message is transmitted at location 30, for example at which location of a motorway a traffic jam is to be expected. The extent of the traffic disruption is indicated at point 31. Here it is noted, for example, whether a possible traffic jam or the blocking of a road extends over one or more exits or over a certain number of kilometers. Position 32 indicates the direction in which the traffic obstruction is located, whether it is, for example, a traffic obstruction in the south or west direction or a traffic obstruction in the north or east direction. With the information available in this way, it is now possible for a navigation system to carry out the route calculation in such a way that the time required for the driver of a vehicle is very short. If the disabilities as such and the length of the disabilities and their direction are known, the navigation system can use the map material, which it can also get from the memory 7, to check whether another route that is longer than the previously calculated route may leads to the goal faster or not.

In Figure 7 it can be seen that the location code 30 is in turn divided into two pieces of information, first the data field 35 in which the version number of the field 19 is written, and the actual location code 36. This measure ensures that when the Receiver is able to evaluate location codes from different data groups in a data telegram, receives an indication of which data group a particular location code belongs to. For example, if you imagine that the data group for Germany for Saarbrücken has the same location code as Nice for the data group France, it is very It is important that the data group is also specified for the location code. However, this has the consequence that the location code does not have to be transmitted with a very small bit width, for example with 8 or 16 bits, but with a larger bit width, for example with 32 bits. The field 27 is then an empty field in which, for. B. a zero is written. However, it is now possible that not all receivers are able to evaluate these more complex location codes. These are therefore solely dependent on the data group specification in field 27, where the data group is defined for all subsequent traffic information, whereas no specification is made if the data group is later linked to the location code. In the first case, the location code of the data field 30 can be shortened to 8 or 16 bits, but it is not possible to pass on data group information. For this reason, for simple receivers, the output of traffic information is limited to a data group that is defined in field 27, in the example mentioned either to Germany or to France.

FIG. 8 now shows the structure of data groups that is stored in the memory 7 assigned to the mobile radio device 4. Data group 38 is a table in which location codes, road connections and standard texts from Germany are stored, as is described in more detail, for example, in DE 35 36 820 or in standard ENV-278/7/3/006. The data group 39 relates to location information and road connections that can be found in France and the data group 40 relates to tables in which location codes and road connections of the city of Frankfurt a. M. are listed in more detail. The list of data groups can be designed as desired. Data groups with tourist sights, such as the Black Forest or the Allgäu, are also possible.

On the basis of the transmitted traffic information, it is possible for the navigation system 6 to calculate a route from the instantaneous point to the destination point, taking into account the requested traffic reports, whereby traffic obstructions can be avoided as far as this is necessary. It is also useful if the current point and the destination are known to only transmit traffic reports that are in a corridor between the current point and the destination. This ensures that not all traffic reports from Germany or France have to be transmitted, but that traffic reports can be limited to a certain area in the direction of the route.

Claims (12)

1. Method for requesting and for processing traffic announcements which involves a traffic announcement enquiry being sent by a radio (4), and a service provider using a base station (2) to provide at least one traffic announcement which is transmitted to the radio (4), the traffic announcements being transmitted by radio in the form of a short message, preferably in the form of a TMC message, characterized in that the traffic announcement enquiry comprises information about the version of the stored data group or data groups in the memory (7) associated with the radio (4) and/or about the producer of the stored data and/or about the date of issue of the stored data, and in that the acknowledgements transmitted from the service provider to the radio (4) are just such traffic announcements as can be evaluated on the basis of the data or data groups stored in the memory (7) associated with the radio (4).
2. Method according to Claim 1, characterized in that the memory (7) stores a plurality of data groups for different geographical data.
3. Method according to Claim 1 or 2, characterized in that a geographical region has a plurality of data groups (38, 39, 40) with different details stored for it in the memory (7).
4. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that for each data group the version and/or producer and/or date of issue are transmitted separately in the traffic announcement enquiry.
5. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the traffic announcement enquiry contains information (16) regarding whether the radio (4) uses a navigation appliance (6) to evaluate only traffic announcements on the basis of a data group (38, 39, 40), and in that this information (16) is taken as a basis for transmitting only traffic announcements which can be evaluated with a data group (38, 39, 40).
6. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the traffic announcement enquiry is sent on request.
7. Method according to one of Claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the traffic announcement enquiry is sent automatically, preferably at prescribed intervals of time.
8. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the requested traffic announcements are taken into account to calculate a route from the current point of the radio (4) to a destination.
9. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the current point of the radio (4) and a destination are transmitted by the radio (4) with the traffic announcement enquiry, and in that only traffic announcements in a corridor between the current point and the destination are transmitted to the radio (4).
10. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that if a plurality of data groups (38, 39, 40) in the radio (4) have the option of evaluation, a location code (36) is transmitted together with the information about the version (35).
11. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the version of the data group (27) is transmitted once by the base station (2) if the radio (4) has signalled that the evaluation of the traffic announcements is based on one data group (38, 39, 40).
12. Method according to Claims 1 to 10, characterized in that the version of the data group (35) is transmitted with the location code (36) of the respective traffic announcement if the radio (4) has signalled that the evaluation of the traffic announcements can be based on a plurality of data groups (38, 39, 40).