Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Traffic analysis or control of surface vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
2001-02-16
2003-01-07
Zanelli, Michael J. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Traffic analysis or control of surface vehicle
C701S207000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06505114
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates in general to a method and a system for traffic monitoring and in particular to measuring traffic intensity and congestion on roads.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
During the latter part of the twentieth century with the expansion of metropolitan areas and the development of new suburban housing, society has experienced longer commuting times to work and higher vehicular congestion on the major metropolitan thoroughfares. National highway systems developed in the early part of the century have not fared any better. The unprecedented growth in vehicle ownership, coupled with public transportation and the high rate of commerce using trucking services has caused substantial congestion as well in almost all major arteries of communication. Traffic and congestion are undesirable, as they are the cause of increased pollution, additional costs to society and in many instances they contribute to accidents.
Various approaches to traffic monitoring and control are being implemented on a world-wide basis. Most of these systems employ sensors that are inherently limited in the coverage area and therefore such systems in most instances are deployed in limited critical areas and depend heavily on cameras and basic weather sensors. Vehicles are then alerted or redirected as needed via large luminous signs posted on such roadways. While these methods are improving the overall safety of some areas they do not provide a comprehensive solution to the problem of traffic and vehicular congestion monitoring. Systems that depend electronic monitoring embedded in the roadway, require a large number of sensors with the associated large investment required and in addition such solutions require constant and costly maintenance.
Radar technology is often used as means of monitoring traffic, notably air traffic. Several methods use microwave raster beams generated by a roadside sensor as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,582,620 to Noetinger; U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,413 to Zachmann; U.S. Pat. No. 4,866,438 to Knish; U.S. Pat. No. 4,985,705 to Stammler; U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,082 to Fredericks and U.S. Pat. No. 5,663,720 to Weissman. These solutions make use of radar signals. Such approaches provide more or less weather interference-free monitoring, but are mainly local solutions, which result in large investments and high maintenance costs and limit them to monitor specific areas.
Optimal routing and automated traffic mapping using a wireless network has also been used as means of gathering and interpreting information aimed at mapping traffic conditions, and is disclosed in for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,150,961 to Alewine et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,821 to Gazis et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,865 to Rostoker et al; JP 8221697 to Takeda Mutsuya; and JP 10307993A to Maru Shinichi. These approaches are focused on controlling traffic and routing and require dedicated communication between the mobile units and the system aimed at the acquisition of information necessary to operate such systems. The solution in U.S. Pat. No. 6,150,961 to Alewine at al requires in addition that vehicles must be equipped with a GPS unit. While such systems may provide solutions for specific applications such as providing optimal routing for an ambulance, the nature of the information acquisition is such that a generalized mapping system would require agreement by a large number of vehicles equipped with wireless units to regularly provide such information. Such agreements are likely to be expensive to implement and more likely not possible to implement in a homogeneous manner over different areas, which negate the ability to generate large area mapping information. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,150,961, the use of wireless infrastructure to provide feedback from GPS units is specifically considered, which could generate location and therefore velocity data from moving vehicles, again communication between the vehicles and the data acquisition system is obtained to communication dedicated to this specific end. Such approach would prove often impractical to implement. In addition, it would be necessary to have installation of such units in a sufficiently large number of vehicles to generate meaningful data, which would, in any case, limit the acquisition of data to areas where the units are outfitted and circulate at any point in time.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and system for traffic monitoring which is not limited to usage of dedicated devices located in a selection of vehicles, overcoming the above-mentioned problems.
The objects are achieved by the methods and systems according to the appended claims.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the invention, a method for traffic monitoring comprises the steps of: determining at least twice, within a specified time interval, geographical positions of a plurality of mobile devices in a mobile telecommunications network by means of measuring at least one property of signals transmitted between said mobile devices and base stations in said mobile telecommunications network; comparing at least a subset of said geographical positions with a route of a road provided in a route database in order to identify mobile devices having routes corresponding to at least a part of said road route; calculating a velocity for said identified mobile devices based on said at least two positions; and comparing said calculated velocity of at least one identified mobile device with a reference velocity of said road in order to monitor and predict traffic intensity on said road.
Hereby a method is provided which makes traffic monitoring of almost any road having coverage of a mobile telecommunications network feasible. The inventive method takes advantage of the large amount of users of mobile devices, such as mobile phones or other wireless devices in a telecommunications network, and the signals that are transmitted between these devices and a plurality of base stations with known locations. The locations of the base stations tend to follow transit arteries, such as highways, where conversations and usage of wireless services is likely to take place. Further, many mobile devices are located in vehicles, such as cars, trucks, buses, etc, or carried by persons located in such vehicles. Analyzing these signals in conjunction with the information where base stations are located in relation to roads and highways, it becomes possible to monitor the traffic on virtually any road covered by a mobile telecommunications network. The invention will benefit from the higher potential frequency reuse in third generation mobile telecommunication systems coupled with capacity requirements for new wireless applications, which will result in further increase in the density of base stations in urban areas and highly trafficked thoroughfares further enhancing the data-gathering ability of the proposed method.
Basically, there are two techniques for positioning a mobile device using a mobile telecommunications network, terminal based or network based. Network based solutions do not require a special kind of handset which would imply that all radio signals to and the wireless network could be used to compute traffic patterns. The present invention particularly benefits from the network based positioning, which eliminates specialized software in the mobile devices. Examples of network based solutions include the Cell Global Identity and Timing Advance (CGI+TA) and the Uplink Time of Arrival (UL−TOA) methods. Furthermore, Doppler Shift from the radio signal of a mobile device can be used to estimate location and speed of vehicles. With the advent of GPRS technology in second generation wireless networks and the resulting “always on” conditions for the wireless users, the data flow to the network will be substantially increased. Third generation (3G) systems will further enhance these characteristics.
Then, the positions of a mobile device is compared with information about road routes and their geographical relationship with the
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