Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Traffic analysis or control of surface vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
2001-02-07
2002-07-30
Cuchlinski, Jr., William A. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Traffic analysis or control of surface vehicle
C701S117000, C701S119000, C701S210000, C701S025000, C340S934000, C340S995190, C303S090000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06427114
ABSTRACT:
SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE INVENTION
The invention is a method and means for control of traffic on a network with route control. The method and means are based on functions in a traffic management system. The invention includes control of traffic from a first route, which passes a bottleneck, which can be a part of the network, e g a node or a link, with low capacity relative to the demand of traffic through the node or the link,—to at least another alternative route. The invention concerns traffic control of vehicles on a road network as a first hand application. But the method can also be used for other applications, e g traffic control of vehicles on rail networks, air traffic network control and sea traffic network control, and as traffic control of data packets on a communication network. This application is also treated.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention and Description of the Related Art
Traffic volumes are large during rush hours and there are queues growing on the network in and outside large cities. It is difficult to find space for more roads and those is expensive to build. By use of advanced information technology the existing capacity of the road network can be utilized better and thereby larger traffic volumes can be handled with less additions of road capacity.
This is reflected in the large interest, which is devoted ITS, Intelligent Transport Systems, within EU, USA and Japan et al. during the nineties. How the solutions would look like is however unclear, and therefore large amounts of money is invested in research in the domain, and several different ideas are studied.
Traditionally people have tried to solve capacity problems in the road network, by building more roads or by taking actions in those points, where problems appear. If there are long queues on a road upstream an intersection, people are trying to increase the ability to pass through the intersection for the cars on the said road. This is the traditional way of looking on traffic problems. The problems consist of narrow sections in the road network. In those points traffic queues arise, and therefore people consider the solution being limited to an increase of the flow capacity in those points.
With a deeper knowledge of traffic, and traffic network characteristics, the traditional “point-oriented” way of work appears as superfluous and inadequate. Performed “solutions” may create larger problems than the problem they solve. An example is given below.
It is not unusual with queues on the entrance roads of the large cities during the rush hour. If a queue is arisen at a narrow section, e g at an on-flow link to the entrance road, and the ability to pass is increased in this point by e g adding an extra lane, the increased flow might be trapped in a new narrow section, whereby queues are built up there instead. Queues at the new spot might create larger problems than the queue at the former spot.
There is a need for a more system oriented way of work for solving “the ability to pass”—problems in a network.
Route control has traditionally been used for certain events, e g road works on a link, when traffic signs guide the traffic into other links around the link with road works, or e g when a larger accident occurred on a link, and the police is there directing the traffic to other links around the place of the accident. This cannot always be done free from secondary problems. If the roadwork or the accident is on a link with large traffic, the new appointed route might not have enough capacity to carry all the new traffic too, and long queues can arise. In large cities the road network is generally heavily loaded during rush hours, and incidents, which suddenly reduce the capacity of a busy link, might easily cause long queues. Those queues in their turns are blocking traffic also on other routes, why ability to pass would be strongly reduced for large parts of the network.
Traditionally route control has been used on corresponding point oriented ways as described above. When a problem appears in a point in the network, traffic is directed away from that point. Then the problem might be solved in that point, but traffic might cause worse problems on other points in the network.
There is a need for more system-oriented methods for solving traffic problems in a road network.
During the nineties the international investments on information technology for vehicle traffic, ITS, have given rise to some new concepts and ideas, of which some will be commented below.
Route management in the shape of DRG, “Dynamic Route Guidance”, has been treated in ITS-projects in EU- and USA-research programs. (The inventor has taken part in such an EU-project). In the concept vehicles are equipped with navigation equipment, Neq, and a central system is supplying Neq with travel times for links in the network. Neq then can select “the best route”, (e g the fastest) through the network. There still today is a spread opinion, that traffic thereby would perform in an almost “optimal” way with a minimum of queues. Superficially it might seam that DRG gets this function: If Neq selects the “fastest route”, the vehicle would avoid places with long queues, and if many (or all) vehicles have got Neqs, the result would be that there never would be any long queues, as the vehicles then would select other routes, and that traffic would be distributed at the network in such a way that alternative routes would take about the same time. The road network would be utilized optimally and the traffic route control would be almost perfect.
Another discussed concept, called “Lisb” below, (probably from Siemens) has also equipment in the car, which is communicating with a central system. Here the idea is that the driver at start puts in his destination. The central system returns a route, which the driver would follow. At several positions (stations) along the road network, e g at intersections, there are local short-distance communication links for information transfer, where the vehicles identify themselves and when needed obtain an updated route.
An established opinion is that the central system, which knows the positions and destinations of the vehicles, can give each vehicle an optimal route. If many (or all) vehicles take parts in the system and the central system often is updated, the central system has “full control” of the vehicles and the traffic, and thereby can optimize the traffic on the road network. The road network would be optimally utilized and the traffic route control would be almost perfect.
The present invention is neither DRG- nor Lisb-concept. Those have problems or shortages, which probably don't appear in a superficial analysis, but will be commented below. It is the opinion of the inventor that traffic is a difficult domain. Most traffic systems (all that the inventor knows about except the inventor's) have fundamental shortages. The general shortage is that the systems are not considering the real-time and network characteristics of the traffic. The consequences will be that the systems would not operate in the way the system originators apparently have thought. The systems will not give any significant positive traffic function, but might even worsen the traffic situation.
The problem with the DRG-concept is related to the real-time requirement and the network characteristics. The central system sends the traffic information. Each vehicle, independent of each other, selects it route based on this information. Nobody knows what the summed traffic result will be. The central system doesn't know where the cars are, which routes they select and then cannot foresee or prevent that traffic problems arise, e g because too many cars are arriving in the same period to an intersection. If the central system were equipped with sensors on the road network, those would after a while measure the traffic effects from the individually chosen vehicle routes. Then traffic problems might already have arisen or are arising. When at last the central system got that information, then it can send new tr
Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz
Cuchlinski Jr. William A.
Dinbis AB
To Tuan C
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