A real-time vehicular traffic flow display system employs groups of monitor stations
positioned at spaced-apart locations along vehicular roadways, to sense the speed
of traffic flow on a given portion of a route. Individual section stations each
serve a sequential group of different monitor stations. Each monitor station senses
the speed of vehicular traffic a given road portion and transmits corresponding
information to an associated section station; each section station processes the
received signals, and transmits them to display stations on board vehicles in addition
to sending the signals to an optional geographic area central station. The signals
transmitted to vehicles present information concerning traffic speed for each monitored
portion of a road in addition to identifying the road portion; traffic speed information
is processed to identify predetermined ranges of average speed in selected colors.
Each vehicle station includes a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and visual
display device with access to both the GPS including a database of local area road
maps for display. All portions of each monitored route on a displayed map are shown
in a color corresponding to the average speed of traffic monitored on the corresponding
route portion. The current position of the vehicle station is shown on the map,
and a "preferred" route from that location to an optionally selected destination
is highlighted; both functions are accomplished in accordance with known GPS technology.
An optional geographic area central station stores information not usually available
in the on-board vehicle station, such as wide-area maps, and also receives traffic
condition signals from various section stations including those beyond the range
of the vehicle station. The central station correlates these two sources of information
and makes the combined results available for separate access by users of the system.
