Traffic information is one of the most important applications for the driver and an essential feature of car infotainment systems. Nowadays the majority of new cars include an optional TMC -enabled navigation system which is able to take the traffic information into consideration by providing the driver with alternative routes to avoid major traffic jams. This feature is today also available for several mobile navigation devices. TMC traffic message services are now operational in most European countries and planned in North America. Some European services are free of charge and supply alerts of incidents, traffic congestion and bad weather. Unfortunately, sometimes TMC information might be not up to date due to delay in the insertion of new events or deletion of old messages at the radio stations. An approach for the enhancement of the existing traffic information services is provided. The main idea consists of providing the drivers with additional visual information about the traffic situation. This will be achieved by a web service which offers traffic and weather webcam pictures on demand or as a push service. Depending on the location of the traffic webcams, this information can be furthermore used to validate the accuracy of the broadcasted TMC messages. The design of this telematics service including server, client architecture and the used protocols is described. For the covering abstract see ITRD E134653.
Samenvatting