Communications: electrical – External condition vehicle-mounted indicator or alarm – Highway information
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-26
2001-10-02
Swarthout, Brent A. (Department: 2736)
Communications: electrical
External condition vehicle-mounted indicator or alarm
Highway information
C340S995190, C348S149000, C701S117000, C701S208000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06297748
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to public highway monitoring systems and to systems at display the data and information available from such monitoring systems.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Several states have implemented systems for monitoring conditions on potentially congested public highways. Such systems typically incorporate sensors or speed traps installed at various locations to monitor current traffic speeds at those locations. Often, the monitoring systems also include video cameras at different locations to provide continuous images and live feeds of conditions.
FIG. 1
shows a prior art traffic information system, generally designated by reference numeral
10
, for monitoring traffic on a public highway system. Systems such as this have been implemented by several states and other governmental agencies.
The information system of
FIG. 1
includes a plurality of speed sensors or traps
12
at various locations along a public highway or along a network of public highways. The speed sensors might typically be spaced at intervals ranging from a tenth of a mile in highly congested areas to perhaps over a mile in less congested areas. Different sensors are positioned in different directions of travel.
The information system also includes a plurality of video cameras
14
. The video cameras are positioned at chosen vantage points to allow highway personnel to view critical stretches of highway. The cameras do not necessarily have a one-to-one correlation with the speed sensors.
Signals from the sensors and cameras are routed to a central facility
16
for monitoring by highway personnel. The central facility typically includes one or more computers
18
for receiving speed sensor data and for displaying it in a meaningful way. For instance, the central facility might have a large wall-mounted map with computer-controlled lights that flash to indicate highway locations where speeds are unusually low.
Camera video signals are routed to a video switch
20
within the central facility and distributed to one or more monitors
22
. Typically, there are fewer monitors than available video signals, so the video switch is programmed to cycle through the signals in a predetermined sequence. Alternatively, the video switch might be controlled by one of computers
18
. In this case, there might be some type of logic that determines which video signal is routed to a particular monitor. For example, the computer might be programmed to cycle through only those video signals that correspond to highway locations that are experiencing congestion.
The information system also includes a database
24
maintained by computers
18
. The database is used to store historical data relating to highway conditions. In most cases, the database will not contain video, but instead will contain historical speed data.
Public highway monitoring systems are used by both highway personnel and news media. In addition, many systems are now being used to provide realtime traffic information to the public via the Internet. For example, traffic conditions can currently be accessed through the Internet for the following areas at the indicated Internet sites (designated by their uniform resource locators or URLs):
Houston “http://herman.tamu.edu/houston-real.html”
San Diego “http://www.scubed.com/caltrans/sd/bit_map.html”
Los Angeles “http://www.scubed.com/caltrans/la/la_transnet.html”
Manitoba: “http://umtig.mgmt.umanitoba.ca/default.htm”
Seattle: “http://www.ivhs.washington.edu/trafnet/”
To implement these sites, a server computer
26
is either located at the central facility
16
or connected for high-speed communications with the central facility. The server computer has a connection to the Internet.
The server computer is connected to access sensor data from the traffic information system. It uses the sensor data to create a continuously-updated map that indicates current traffic conditions.
While these Internet sites are useful, improvements are needed. One problem with the sites is that they display traffic information in different ways and require different user instructions to provide traffic information. While it would be desirable to create a common user interface that would access and display data from all of the available public highway monitoring systems, this is difficult because the data from the various systems is available only in different formats, depending on the particular proprietary format used by each monitoring system.
Another problem lies in the fact that information is presented in visual formats that are not immediately useful to users. For example, typical user interfaces for traffic monitoring systems show rough maps having roads that are divided into sections corresponding to locations of speed sensors. The sections are color-coded to indicate current speeds measured by corresponding sensors. For example, red might indicate “stop-and-go” conditions, yellow might indicate “slow” conditions, and green might indicate “normal” conditions. Icons might be used to indicate traffic incidents such as construction zones and crashes. While such user interfaces indeed present the available information, they do not do so in a way that is particularly useful to a person planning a commute across town.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention includes features that make traffic data more useful and accessible to travelers and specifically to commuters. A traffic information system in accordance with the invention has a user interface that includes an interactive road map. The road map is a stylized representation of a given coverage area, with major highways broken into high-level segments such as segments between major highway intersections. A user can interactively select any particular segment. In response, the user interface displays either the average speed for that segment or the time required to traverse that segment in light of the current average speed. The user can zoom in on a particular segment, resulting in a detail map showing a road segment broken into sub-segments. Each sub-segment is a major highway span such as one between two significant highway interchanges.
The traffic information system also acquires and displays still images of whatever segment or sub-segment is currently highlighted. The still images are acquired from video cameras located at vantage points above or adjacent highways.
The invention allows the user to personalize the parameters of the system to his or her specific household preferences by implementing a trip planner. The trip planner allows a user to designate beginning and ending locations and in response determines the best route and alternate routes from the beginning location to the ending location. To accomplish this, the trip planner evaluates all possible routes between two locations and identifies the one having the shortest travel time based on current average speeds for the sub-segments covered by the routes.
The invention further includes facilities for converting raw data and media feeds obtained from an existing public highway monitoring system into standard file formats used for internet enhanced personal computers and for interactive set-top boxes so that a single user interface can utilize data from many different highway monitoring systems.
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Bauer Eric T.
Lappenbusch Richard W.
Shoemaker Charles H.
Lee & Hayes PLLC
Microsoft Corporation
Swarthout Brent A.
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