U.S. Philips Corporation

Mannesmann Vdo Ag

Carla J Emmerink

Erik J Walgers

Edwin W Mulder

Paul D Lahaije

Hendrik H Veenker

An apparatus for supplying traffic-related information in a vehicle receives a message concerning a traffic-related event, for instance a traffic queue. This message contains information about the location of the traffic-related event. The apparatus calculates the time and/or distance interval between the location of the event and the current position of the vehicle and gives an alarm if the time and/or distance interval is smaller than a predetermined time and/or distance interval.

Apparatus for supplying traffic-related information

In a navigation system a driver of a vehicle is guided along a planned route (310) from an origin to a destination. The system comprises a receiver (122) for receiving a traffic message of an actual travel condition concerning a road-element. The system comprises an evaluation module (126) to determine whether the received traffic message makes it necessary to plan a new route to the destination. If a traffic message is received for a road-element which does not form a part of the planned route (212), the evaluation module determines whether the message indicates an improvement (204) of the travel condition of that road-element and if this is so then the planning module plans a new route.

Navigation system and method for guiding a road vehicle

Road data is stored in hierarchically organized levels. A lower level has detailed representations of road links and junctions. At a globalized level an abstracted representation is derived: a set of elementary junctions is joined to a complex junction on the basis of predetermined coherencies among the elements of the set. This repeats until all complex junctions have been found. All external road links between a border element of a particular set and any element of a particular neighboring set are detected, including allowed traffic directions on the external road links. The links are collected to a single complex road link while mapping the allowed traffic directions thereon. This repeats until all complex road links have been found. Remaining elementary and complex junction are represented by a respective single node. Also, each remaining elementary and complex road link is represented by a single higher level road link.

Growing community of inventors

Eindhoven, Netherlands

Carla J Emmerink