JP2010286908A - Dispatch system - Google Patents

Abstract

An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle allocation system capable of accurately predicting an estimated arrival time even in an urban area.
The position of vehicles (mobile stations) 110 to 112 moving in a base zone by a radio base station 120 is measured by a car navigation device equipped on the vehicle, and the measured position of the vehicle is connected to the radio base station 120. In the vehicle allocation system in which the management center 140 is loaded by polling, the management center 140 grasps the positions of the vehicles 110 to 112 and instructs the vehicles 110 to 112 to dispatch vehicles, the vehicles 110 to 112 measured by the car navigation device The travel time for calculating the time required to travel from the position of the vehicle to the destination instructed by the management center 140 is calculated, the time when the host vehicle reaches the destination from the current time is calculated, and the estimated arrival time is calculated. When the management center 140 is requested to dispatch a vehicle, the management center 140 responds to the allocation request. Those predicted arrival time which is wirelessly transmitted from the vehicle 110 to 112 on the occasion has to be able to notify the passengers.
[Selection] Figure 3

Description

  The present invention relates to a vehicle allocation system that manages the operation of an automobile, and more particularly to a vehicle allocation system that guides an empty vehicle to a place where the passenger is waiting in response to a request from the passenger.

  As is well known, the taxi operation mode is a so-called “sink” where passengers wait for a signal on the road while driving a vehicle and get on the spot, and for example, taxi dispatch requests from passengers by telephone or the like. Depending on the situation, there may be a so-called “taxi call” in which a passenger is picked up at a place designated by the management center. It is desirable from the viewpoint of taxi operation efficiency to select a vehicle that is empty at that time and that is closest to the passenger's waiting area, give instructions to the vehicle, and dispatch it. .

  Therefore, conventionally, each taxi vehicle is equipped with a positioning system (GPS), a so-called car navigation system, and the management center performs appropriate polling (periodic call) on the vehicles under management, and vehicles under management. An AVM dispatch system is disclosed in which the position of the vehicle is always known, and it is possible to immediately determine which vehicle is closest to the passenger's standby place (see, for example, Patent Document 1). Here, AVM is an abbreviation for “Automatic Vehicle Monitoring”.

FIG. 3 shows an example of such a vehicle allocation system. In the figure, 110, 111, and 112 represent mobile stations, and in this case, taxi vehicles equipped with a car navigation system. These mobile stations 110 to 112 are taxi-operated in the base zone 130 which is a service area provided by the radio base station 120 under the management of the management center.
At this time, the radio base station 120 is connected to the management center 140 by a dedicated line or the like as shown in the figure.

Therefore, as described above, the management center 140 can always know the positions of the mobile stations 110 to 112 by polling the vehicles under management, that is, the mobile stations 110 to 112, as a result. It is possible to immediately determine which of the mobile stations 110 to 112 is closest to the place (see, for example, Patent Document 2).
As a result, when a taxi dispatch request is received from a passenger, the vehicle closest to the passenger's standby location can be selected, and an instruction can be given to the vehicle for dispatch.

In addition, in this case, the management center 140 calculates a predicted arrival time, that is, a time at which the vehicle arrives at the destination, by performing a route search on the map from the position of the destination that is a waiting place for the passenger and the position of the vehicle. Is possible.
Therefore, in this case, the time when the vehicle arrives can be notified to the passenger in advance, and as a result, the passenger can know how long the waiting time will be and can contribute to the improvement of the service.

JP 2007-80215 A JP 2005-318044 A

By the way, if the passenger is notified in advance of the time when the vehicle arrives, the arrival time informed to the passenger at this time is inaccurate, and if it is delayed, the vehicle arrives even when the passenger expects it. As a result, passengers' expectations are greatly diminished, leading to a decline in service rather than service improvement.
On the other hand, if the arrival time is early, although the passengers are less dissatisfied, the passenger is not necessarily reliable, and therefore the arrival time notified to the passenger is never accurate.
However, in the prior art, it is difficult to say that consideration is given to improving the accuracy of the expected arrival time, and there is a problem in improving the service.
In the prior art, the management center searches for a route on the map from the position information of the vehicle, and calculates the expected arrival time from the searched route. In this case, the searched route is not necessarily limited to one route. In particular, in urban areas, there are many cases where there are two or more routes. In this case, the length of the route becomes a criterion for route selection, and the route with the shortest distance can only be selected.

However, the expected arrival time is not simply determined by the travel distance, but varies depending on, for example, the weather, road conditions, vehicle traffic conditions, and the like. Especially in urban areas, vehicle traffic is greatly affected, making it difficult to predict when traffic is congested.
However, in the prior art, since the influence due to these factors is not taken into consideration, it is difficult to improve the accuracy of the predicted arrival time, which causes a problem in improving the service.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle allocation system capable of accurately predicting an estimated arrival time even in an urban area.

  The purpose is to measure the position of the vehicle moving in the base zone by the radio base station by a car navigation device equipped on the vehicle, and the management center connected to the radio base station polls the measured position of the vehicle. In the vehicle allocation system that captures the vehicle position by the management center and directs the vehicle to be dispatched from the management center, the management center determines from the vehicle position measured by the car navigation device. Travel time calculation means for calculating the time required to travel to the destination instructed by the vehicle, and the time when the host vehicle reaches the destination is calculated from the travel time calculated by the travel time calculation means and the current time. A wireless communication means configured to wirelessly transmit the predicted arrival time to the management center; , When dispatched requests from passengers, radio transmitted predicted arrival time from the vehicle when the response to the dispatch request is achieved so as to be notified to the passengers.

  According to the above means, the expected arrival time is calculated on the vehicle side which is the mobile station. At this time, the vehicle side provides the optical beacon, the radio wave beacon and further the FM broadcast at a specific point on the road. Various information related to the running road, such as traffic jam information and detailed information at the most recent time about the road near the vehicle position, can be obtained. Therefore, the expected arrival time can be calculated with high accuracy.

  According to the present invention, since it is possible to notify the passenger of the predicted arrival time with high accuracy, it is possible to sufficiently meet the passenger's expectation and greatly contribute to service improvement.

It is a block diagram which shows an example of the mobile station in embodiment of the dispatch system which concerns on this invention. It is a block diagram which shows an example of the management center in one Embodiment of the dispatch system which concerns on this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the dispatch system to which this invention was applied.

Hereinafter, a vehicle allocation system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to embodiments shown in the drawings.
First, FIG. 1 shows details of the mobile station 110 in this embodiment. In this case, the mobile station 110 is representative of the other mobile stations 111 and 112, and as shown in FIG. A display 151 and a car navigation device 152 are provided.
Next, FIG. 2 shows the details of the management center 140 in this embodiment, and includes an AVM server 153 and an AVM dispatch terminal 154 as shown.

  Here, also in this embodiment, the entire vehicle allocation system is the same as in the case of the prior art shown in FIG. 3, and therefore, the management center 140 is also the vehicle under management, that is, the movement, as described above. Always know the location of the stations 110-112, and when there is a request from a passenger, determine the mobile stations 110-112 that are closest to the passenger's standby location, perform dispatch, and calculate the expected arrival time In addition, the operation as an AVM system for taxi dispatch is the same as that of the prior art described in Patent Document 1 described above.

  Therefore, the in-vehicle wireless device 150, the operation indicator 151 and the car navigation device 152 of the mobile station 110 of FIG. 1, and the AVM server 153 and the AVM dispatch terminal 154 of the management center of FIG. In this embodiment, the operation is the same as in the case of the prior art described in Patent Document 1 described above. First, the car navigation device 152 sequentially detects the position of the vehicle by the built-in GPS, and automatically detects the position based on the detected data. The vehicle position data is updated, and therefore the latest vehicle position data is always prepared here.

This is sequentially notified to the management center side in response to polling from the management center 140. As a result, the management center 140 always knows the latest position information about the vehicles under management. Therefore, when a taxi dispatch request is made by a passenger, it is possible to select an empty vehicle that is closest to the passenger's waiting place, and to give an appropriate dispatch by giving an instruction to the vehicle. Is possible.
At this time, the information notified from the vehicle side in response to polling from the management center 140 is called dynamic information, and is composed of vehicle empty / actual vehicle information, vehicle speed information, vehicle abnormality information, and the like. The own vehicle position data is included.

However, in the case of this embodiment, the car navigation device 152 is not only this, but the software stored in the built-in CPU instructs the vehicle dispatch from the management center 140, and when the destination is notified, The route from the vehicle position to the destination is uniquely searched.
When a plurality of routes are searched, the car navigation device 152 selects a route that requires the shortest travel time from among them, and uses the travel time at this time to reach the destination as an expected arrival time. calculate.

At this time, although not shown, the mobile station 110 is provided with nuclide information acquisition means such as an optical beacon receiving device, a radio beacon receiving device, and an FM broadcast receiving device. Various types of information related to the inside road, such as traffic jam information and detailed information at the most recent time regarding the road near the vehicle position, can be captured.
When the car navigation device 152 selects a route that requires the shortest travel time from a plurality of searched routes, the car navigation device 152 selects a route based on the above-described various information related to the road that is running. ing.

In the case of roads where other vehicles are traveling, such as urban roads, the shortest distance route is not necessarily the shortest travel time due to factors such as traffic congestion, road conditions, and weather conditions.
Therefore, for each of a plurality of given routes, if the route data of the route does not take into account factors such as traffic congestion, road conditions, and weather conditions, which route is the route that requires the shortest travel time Cannot be determined.
At this time, for each of a plurality of given routes, considering factors such as traffic jam conditions, road conditions, and weather conditions in the road data of the route, for example, a route with a short distance but a significant traffic jam is long. When there is a route with little traffic jam, it is possible to select the latter depending on the conditions. As a result, a route that requires the shortest travel time is selected, and the waiting time of passengers can be reduced.

Moreover, how the factors such as traffic conditions, road conditions, and weather conditions affect the travel time of the vehicle can be estimated in advance for each route by, for example, simulation. The result can be softwareized and prepared as route selection software.
Therefore, by storing the above-described route selection software in the CPU of the car navigation device 152, the car navigation device 152 can select a route that requires the shortest travel time from among the plurality of searched routes.
As described above, this route selection processing is executed when the vehicle is instructed to be dispatched from the management center 140 and notified of the destination, and the travel time of the route uniquely selected by the mobile station 110 is calculated. The time to reach the destination is calculated from this travel time, and is set as the expected arrival time.

When the operator of the mobile station 110 (driver in the case of a taxi) presses a push button indicating “OK” on the operation indicator 151, the expected arrival time is input to the in-vehicle wireless device 150, and the wireless base station 120 is To the AVM server 153 of the management center 140 through which the expected arrival time is recognized by the operator of the management center 140.
Therefore, when the operator of the management center 140 informs the passenger who requested the taxi allocation at this time that the vehicle allocation related to the vehicle allocation request has been completed and the vehicle is heading for the passenger's waiting area, I can tell you.

  The expected arrival time at this time is information uniquely calculated in the mobile station 110. In this case, the expected arrival time is calculated on the mobile station side. At this time, the mobile station 110 described above As described above, various types of information about a running road provided by optical beacons, radio beacons, and FM broadcasts at a specific point on the road, such as traffic information and details of the road near the vehicle position at the most recent time. Therefore, the estimated arrival time can be calculated with higher accuracy than when there is no such information.

Therefore, according to this embodiment, it is possible to notify the passenger of the predicted arrival time, which is sufficiently accurate compared to the prior art, so that the passenger's expectation can be fully met and the passenger can be trusted. As a result, it can greatly contribute to the improvement of taxi dispatch service.
The above embodiment is an example in the case where the present invention is embodied as a taxi dispatch system, but the application target of the present invention is not limited to taxi dispatch, for example, dispatch for a home delivery vehicle Needless to say, it can be implemented as a system.

110, 111, 112 Mobile station (vehicle)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 120 Radio base station 130 Base zone 140 Management center 150 Car-mounted radio 151 Operation indicator 152 Car navigation apparatus 153 AVM server 154 AVM dispatch terminal

Claims (1)

The position of the vehicle moving in the base zone by the radio base station is measured by a car navigation device equipped on the vehicle, and the measured position of the vehicle is captured by polling by the management center connected to the radio base station, and the vehicle In the vehicle allocation system in which the location of the vehicle is grasped by the management center and the vehicle is instructed to be dispatched from the management center,
The vehicle
From travel time calculation means for calculating the time required to travel from the position of the host vehicle measured by the car navigation device to the destination instructed by the management center, from the travel time calculated by the travel time calculation means and the current time Calculating a time at which the host vehicle reaches the destination to obtain an expected arrival time; and wireless communication means for wirelessly transmitting the expected arrival time to the management center,
The management center is configured to notify a passenger of an estimated arrival time wirelessly transmitted from the vehicle in response to the vehicle allocation request when a vehicle allocation request is made by the passenger.

Images