System and method for collecting and distributing traffic information

1. A system for collecting and distributing traffic information, comprising:

a vehicle-installed apparatus installed in each vehicle and configured to transmit data which comprises sensor data output by a sensor provided in the vehicle; and

a center apparatus configured to receive and manipulate the data transmitted by the vehicle-installed apparatus,

wherein the vehicle-installed apparatus comprises:

an event detecting unit configured to detect an obstruction event on a road, from the sensor data; and

a probe data transmitting unit configured to transmit probe data, wherein the probe data comprises an event label indicating a type of the obstruction event and position information on a position at which the obstruction event detected has occurred, in addition to the sensor data, and

wherein the center apparatus comprises:

a change point detecting unit configured to detect an event change point at which the sensor data in the probe data collected from a plurality of vehicles have changed in a correlated manner;

an event section partitioning unit configured to partition a road into road sections at the event change point;

an event assigning unit configured to assign an event label contained in the probe data to a corresponding road section;

an event data storage unit configured to store event data composed of pairs of road sections and event labels assigned thereto; and

an event data distributing unit configured to distribute the event data to the vehicle-installed apparatus.

2. The system according to claim 1 ,

wherein the center apparatus further comprises a feature space projection processing unit configured to project the probe data collected from the plurality of vehicles, onto a feature space by principal component analysis, and

wherein the change point detecting unit comprises means for detecting the event change point based on a change of a feature space vector of the probe data projected onto the feature space.

3. The system according to claim 1 ,

wherein the event assigning unit comprises means for selecting one event label to be assigned to a road section among a plurality of event labels, wherein the selected one event label is of obstruction events that have been detected by a majority of vehicles in the road section.

4. The system according to claim 1 ,

wherein when the center apparatus repeatedly executes the process by the change point detecting unit, the process by the event section partitioning unit, and the process by the event assigning unit, the event data distributing unit distributes event data newly recorded in the event data storage unit, with a new flag affixed to the event data.

5. The system according to claim 1 ,

wherein the vehicle-installed apparatus further comprises an event data display unit for displaying an icon and character information in accordance with the event label; and

the event data display unit is configured to display the event data distributed from the center apparatus, and an obstruction event detected by means of the event detecting unit in the vehicle in which the vehicle-installed apparatus is installed, in a distinguishing manner.

6. The system according to claim 1 ,

wherein the vehicle-installed apparatus further comprises an event data display unit for displaying an icon and character information in accordance with the event label;

when the center apparatus repeatedly executes the process by the change point detecting unit, the process by the event section partitioning unit, and the process by the event assigning unit, the event data distributing unit distributes event data newly recorded in the event data storage unit, with a new flag affixed to the event data; and

the event data display unit is configured to display event data to which the new flag is affixed, and event data to which no new flag is affixed, in a distinguishing manner.

7. A method for collecting and distributing traffic information, which method is implemented in a system comprising a vehicle-installed apparatus installed in a vehicle and configured to transmit a sensor data output by a sensor provided in the vehicle, and a center apparatus configured to receive and process the sensor data, the method comprising:

detecting, in the vehicle-installed apparatus, an obstruction event on a road from the sensor data; and

transmitting probe data from the vehicle-installed apparatus, wherein the probe data comprises an event label indicating a type of the obstruction event and position information on a position at which the obstruction event detected has occurred, in addition to the sensor data; and

detecting, in the center apparatus, an event change point at which the sensor data in the probe data collected from a plurality of vehicles have changed in a correlated manner;

partitioning a road into road sections at the event change point;

assigning an event label contained in the probe data to a corresponding road section; and

distributing event data composed of pairs of road sections and event labels assigned thereto, from the center apparatus to the vehicle-installed apparatus.

8. The method according to claim 7 ,

wherein detecting the event change point comprises detecting the event change point based on a change of a feature space vector resulting from projection of the probe data, collected from the plurality of vehicles, onto the feature space by principal component analysis.