WO2015015235A1

WO2015015235A1 - Dynamic travel guidance system for motorists

Info

Publication number: WO2015015235A1
Application number: PCT/IB2013/001656
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jinxiang REN
Original assignee: Ren Jinxiang
Priority date: 2013-07-29
Filing date: 2013-07-29
Publication date: 2015-02-05

Abstract

A dynamic travel guidance system (DTGS) is applied for an international patent. The DTGS integrates automatic traffic counts (ATC), macroscopic travel demand modeling (TDM), and mesoscopic network modeling technique - dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) to optimize anticipatory time-dependent en-route plans for motorists. These plans include optimal real-time travel route choices, starting and ending times based on anticipating traffic condition along the route so as to minimize the actual experienced travel time. Cloud Computing, Mobile Internet Information Technology and Personal Mobile Devices are utilized as data storage and communication tools to integrate with the existing GPS. An innovative and feasible technical process is claimed to realize the DTGS to more efficiently minimize respective motorists' experienced en-route travel times, delays and costs, and therefore, the DTGS enhances transportation system performance by reducing system-wide traffic congestion and air pollution.

Description

5. Description

An existing Global Positioning System (GPS) provides motorists with static travel guidance based on simple mathematical calculations of travel distances, speeds, times, historical or instantaneous traffic congestion or incident delays. In other words, anticipatory en-route traffic dynamics based on real-time traffic data are not incorporated into the existing GPS system to provide motorists with optimal time-varying en-route travel guidance, starting and ending travel time for different modes of travel.

A dynamic travel guidance system (DTGS) is applied for an international patent. The DTGS integrates automatic traffic counts (ATC), macroscopic travel demand modeling (TDM), including EMME ^[1] auto demand adjustment techniques or VISUM¹-²¹ T-Flow Fuzzy procedures, and meso-scopic network modeling technique - dynamic traffic assignment^[3] (DTA) in Dynameq^[4], DynusT^[5], or PTV Network Simulation software tools. The DTGS optimizes anticipatory time-dependent en-route plans, such as: optimal real-time travel route choices or time-dependent shortest paths (TDSP), starting and ending times based on antiticipating traffic condition along the route so as to minimize the actual experienced travel time.

Cloud computing, Mobile Internet Services and Mobile Personal Devices are integrated with the existing GPS to store and communicate the DTGS's derived time-dependent shortest paths, starting and ending time to respective motorists by different modes of travel.

An innovative and feasible technical process is claimed to realize the DTGS to more efficiently minimize individual motorists' en-route travel times, delays and costs, and therefore, the DTGS enhances transportation system performance by reducing system-wide congestion and air pollution.

This innovative process is described in the following sections and illustrated in Figure 1 : Technical Process for Dynamic Travel Guidance System (DTGS).

1) Travel Demand Modeling - In an urban setting, build a macroscopic travel demand forecasting model based on the existing available transportation planning and modeling software tools, such as: EMME, VISUM, TransCad, Cube, or Paramics, to derive time-sliced origin-destination trip tables (or matrices), which are validated against existing traffic counts.

2) Traffic Count Locations - Use EMME Traffic Count Location (Tool) ^[1]to run the validated travel demand model (in EMME format) to find a series of optimal locations on which to conduct traffic counts by 5-15 minute intervals.

3) Automatic Traffic Count - Real-time traffic counts are automatically collected at these optimal locations concurrently for every consecutive 5-15 minute interval in the urban roadway network, and the real traffic count data is transmitted and stored in Cloud for the subsequent steps.

4) Traffic Demand Adjustment or Correction - Either use EMME Traffic Demand Adjustment (Tool) or Multiclass Demand Adjustment (Tool) ^[1] to adjust the origin-destination trip tables to fit the real-time 5-15 minute time-sliced traffic counts; optionally use the matrix correction method T-FIow Fuzzy that is integrated into VISUM ^{[6] [7]} to derive the 5-15 minute time sliced trip tables by correcting the origin-destination trip tables to fit the real-time 5-15 minute time-sliced traffic counts.

5) Dynamic Traffic Assignment - The prepared time-sliced traffic demand tables are used for dynamic traffic assignments by using Dynameq, DynusT or PTV mesoscopic traffic simulation DTA software, which optimizes time-varying real-time routing plans for every origin-destination pair, such as: optimal time-dependent shortest path (TDSP) ^[3] , and starting and ending travel time for respective motori sts by different modes of travel.

6) Cloud Computing - Step 3, Step 4 and Step 5 are implemented through Cloud Computing and the results are communicated to Mobile Internet Information Technology and respective motorists' Mobile Personal Devices.

7) Mobile Internet Communication - Each motorist's request for optimal dynamic origin-destination en-route guidance, starting and ending travel times are communicated through Cloud Computing/Mobile Internet service, which iteratively updates Step 3 through Step 5 for every 5-minute or 15-minute time interval depending on the computing power and the accuracy required by the DTGS design.

8) Personal Mobile Device - Personal mobile device, such as I-Phone, I-Pad and so on can be utilized by individual motorists to store a series of personal origin-destination choices. Upon requests by a Personal Mobile Device user, the DTGS instantaneously optimizes the time-dependent origin-destination en-route guidance for the respective motorist by different modes of travel.

9) Integrated GPS -Cloud Computing, Mobile internet, and Personal Mobile Device interact with the existing GPS to communicate the optimal TDSP, starting and ending travel time to the respective motorists by different modes of travel.

In summary, the DTGS is innovation that takes advantage of the innovative transportation modeling technologies combined with cloud computing, mobile internet information technology and personal mobile devices to integrate with the existing static GPS to provide motorists with dynamic travel guidance.

Claims

4. Priority Claims

Priority Claim Item 1:

A technical process is claimed for the first time to truly realize Dynamic Travel Guidance System (DTGS), which integrates automatic traffic counts, macroscopic travel demand modeling, and mesoscopic dynamic traffic assignments, to generate optimized dynamic travel guidance in terms of time-dependent shortest paths, optimal starting time and ending time for respective motorists by different modes of travel.

Priority Claim Item 2:

Time-sliced real-time automatic traffic counts are used to adjust multiclass traffic demand (EMME software tool for Multiclass Demand Adjustment) or to correct vehicle traffic matrices (VISUM software tool for T-Flow Fuzzy Technique) to better fit the observed counting flows in order for the dynamic traffic assignments (DTA) to derive time-varying en-route choices based on anticipatory traffic condition along the route. The en-route choices minimize the actual experienced travel time for motorists.

Priority-CJaim-Item-5-:

Cloud computing, Mobile Internet Services and Mobile Personal Devices are integrated with the existing GPS to store and communicate the DTGS derived time-dependent shortest paths, starting and ending time to respective motorists by different modes of travel.