Communications: electrical – External condition vehicle-mounted indicator or alarm – Highway information
Patent
1996-11-07
1999-01-26
Hofsass, Jeffery A.
Communications: electrical
External condition vehicle-mounted indicator or alarm
Highway information
340990, 340995, 701208, 701212, G08G 109
Patent
active
058643052
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a traffic information system according to the first part of claim one. Traffic information systems are becoming more and more interesting among others due to the increasing number of vehicles on the roads. Due to the increasing traffic on the roads the situation is that it sometimes--or even often--takes too much time to get from one point to another because of hindrances such as queues, accidents, road construction works etc. Neither hindrances simply because of too much traffic nor hindrances of the more accidental or coincidental character can really be avoided or reduced as to their effects with any other means than through the creation of traffic surveying traffic information systems with the help of which it is really possible to, in time, get information about the situation along the possible route a particular driver may take. This is of a great importance both for reasons of saving time and for avoiding queues which is a secondary effect that positively affects the environment as well as it increases the safety both as far as primary dangers are concerned, such as e.g. animals on the road, a slippery road or similar and secondary dangers, i.e. in the form of an accident which already has taken place but which might cause further accidents etc.
Consequently it is of the utmost importance, with the increasingly busy and complex road traffic, that traffic information systems are provided wherein the quality of the traffic information is high and without undue delay of the transmission to the relevant user to whom the information must be easily accessible etc.
STATE OF THE ART
Traffic information can e.g. be provided via traffic announcements made by radio broadcasting stations. The provision of information is improved through the use of e.g. the German ARI-system, and the European standard RDS, Radio Data System. At the option of the driver, the car-radio will automatically pick up the traffic announcements and turn up the loudspeaker volume or shut off the cassette player at the occurrence of a signal which is given by the broadcaster. The normal radio emissions are in this case interrupted to provide the driver with the relevant traffic information. In this case, however, the traffic announcements are made over the normal audiochannel. This means that anyone who has tuned into that particular frequency will hear the information even if he is not concerned. However, generally the broadcaster will not permit the programs to be interrupted to such a large extent or as frequently as it might be necessary in some instances since this would make the program uninteresting to the listeners who are not concerned. Furthermore the driver might not even be in the car when the information is delivered and then might already have chosen the road where the hindrance is located before the message is delivered the next time.
Furthermore it is not possible for the driver to get an overview of the current situation e.g. before entering an area etc.
With for example the Radio Data System (RDS), information can be broadcast digitally using the existing FM network. The digital information is transmitted without causing any disturbance in the audio channel through using spare frequency space available in the FM bands. The RDS thus provides a silent, digital channel which can be added to any FM radio station. At the user end an RDS demodulator and a decoder has to be added to the FM-receiver. However, as already mentioned, when the traffic announcements are picked up by the RDS car radio, the normal programs are interrupted.
However, the traffic message channel (TMC) uses the FM subcarrier channel for broadcasting coded messages describing the traffic event in full detail. Thus, with the RDS/TMC it is possible to transmit traffic information without interfering at all with the normal audio channel. The traffic message channel TMC uses the FM subcarrier channel for broadcasting coded messages which describe the traffic events in a detailed manner. A TMC protocol c
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AB Volvo
Hofsass Jeffery A.
Mannava Ashok
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