FIELD

The present application generally relates to navigation devices and traffic analysis methods.

BACKGROUND

Governments, corporations and other bodies conduct transportation planning to ease traffic and reduce travel time. In transportation planning, governments need information regarding road infrastructure and traffic analysis to make proper decisions.

Conventionally, traffic analysis was obtained doing limited surveys. These surveys include drivers liming a specific route using a stop watch or temporarily placing cameras along a road to match license plates and monitor the traffic. However, surveys are costly and result in limited samples.

Inductive loops or cameras may be placed in a road to measure speed and how many drivers use that road. However, inductive loops or cameras are generally very costly and time consuming.

In recent years, consumers have been provided with a variety of devices and systems to enable them to locate places on a digital map using GPS (Global Positioning System) signal reception and processing functionality. The term “place” is a general term used throughout the description of example embodiments. The term “place” includes street addresses, buildings located at street addresses such as businesses and landmarks, and facilities located at a number of street addresses such as shopping malls and business parks. The variety of devices and systems used by consumers are in the form of in-vehicle navigation systems that enable drivers to navigate over streets and roads; hand-held devices such as personal digital assistants (“PDAs”), personal navigation devices (PNDs), and cell phones or other types of mobile devices that can do the same; desktop applications, and Internet applications in which users can generate maps showing desired places. The common aspect in all of these and other types of devices and systems is a map database of geographic features, vectors and attributes, and software to access, manipulate and navigate the map database in response to user inputs.

SUMMARY

In at least one example embodiment, a method of analyzing traffic by a system is disclosed. The method includes receiving sequential location measurements from users of the system, mapping the received sequential location measurements to a digital map, and determining traffic information for a first time period based on mapped sequential location measurements corresponding to the first time period.

In another example embodiment, a system includes a database configured to store sequential location measurements received from users of the system and a processor configured to extract sequential location measurements from the database and determine traffic information for a first period based on the extracted sequential location measurements. The sequential location measurements include periodic times and associated coordinates.

Another example embodiment provides computer software including one or more software modules operable, when executed in an execution environment, to cause a processor to connect to a database configured to store sequential location measurements received from users of the system and extract sequential location measurements from the database and determine traffic information for a first period based on the extracted sequential location measurements. The sequential location measurements include periodic times and associated coordinates.

