In-vehicle telematics systems provide an increasingly broad spectrum of services to users, such as entertainment, emergency notification, and so on. However, one of the most popular services provided by such systems is still navigational assistance. In this role, the telematics unit receives or generates a route starting point and a route ending point, and then generates a series of directions for taking the user from the starting point to the ending point. Since the user is most often in a road vehicle, the directions often take the form of directions to take certain roads for certain distances or until certain turning points. These are sometimes referred to as turn-by-turn directions.
For such directions to be optimally effective, however, it is important for the telematics device to have an awareness of current roads and their availability. For example, when a new roadway has been added to the road system, this may provide a better route for a given trip, and should be available for routing in that case. Similarly, when a road has been removed permanently or temporarily from the road system, this information is also important in providing correct and efficient navigational assistance to a user.
While road removal and road addition changes have been traditionally accounted for by way of map update packages, one class of road changes remains difficult to account for. In particular, temporary road closures which are of too immediate an effect and too short a duration to be included in map update packages are often unannounced and unknown to navigational assistance devices. An unknown temporary road closure can have a significant negative impact on a user's navigation experience.
Moreover, when a road is known to have been closed, the subsequent reopening of that road may allow more efficient routing of telematics users. However, as with road closure information, road reopening information is also not routinely widely available for consideration by telematics units in calculating turn-by-turn directions. Thus, a system and method are needed for enabling a vehicle telematics device to become aware of temporary road closures and subsequent reopenings.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds