CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The entire disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2019-121408 filed on Jun. 28, 2019 including the specification, claims, drawings, and abstract is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to an automatic driving vehicle that automatically travels in accordance with an instruction from an operation management center.

BACKGROUND

Heretofore, there have been various suggestions as to automatic driving of a vehicle. In JP 2002-053044 A (Patent Literatures 1), there is disclosed a system in which an automatic driving vehicle automatically travels along a predetermined course while stopping at respective stations. In this system, a traffic control center controls arrival and departure of the automatic traveling vehicle at each station based on a standard timetable. In particular, departure time and scheduled arrival time at the next station are transmitted to the automatic traveling vehicle to determine a travel pattern between the stations, so that a vehicle operation can be managed without changing the standard timetable. Furthermore, in JP 2017-182137 A (Patent Literatures 2), there is disclosed a system to control operation of a bus in response to a user's request. That is, an operation management center prepares an operation plan indicating when and where the bus travels in response to the user's request, and this plan is transmitted to the bus, so that the bus travels based on the operation plan.

In systems described in Patent Literatures 1 and 2, a center determines an operation schedule of an automatic driving vehicle, to control automatic driving of the vehicle. Here, in a case of operating a plurality of automatic driving vehicles, it becomes a problem as to how to put the automatic driving vehicle into service on a travel route. Particularly, in case of using an electrically-powered automatic driving vehicle, the automatic driving vehicle has to be periodically removed from service or put into service on the travel route for the purpose of charging a battery, and control in this case becomes a problem.

SUMMARY

According to the present disclosure, in an automatic driving vehicle that is controlled by an operation management center, and has an automatic mode to automatically travel along a set travel route, an input to shift to the automatic mode is performed by an operator, a travel start instruction is received from the operation management center, a start manipulation waiting state of waiting for a start manipulation by the operator is provided, and in the start manipulation waiting state, in a case where the start manipulation is performed and a case where the start manipulation is not performed and a predetermined time elapses, start is performed to start travel in the automatic mode.

In the start manipulation waiting state, a stop holding state is provided, and in case of performing the start, the stop holding state may be automatically canceled to perform the start.

In a case where the travel start instruction is received, information that the automatic vehicle is at a start manipulation waiting state may be informed to the operator.

At the start, a horn may be sounded.

According to the present disclosure, also in a case where an operator does not perform any start manipulation, a vehicle can automatically perform start. Particularly, an input is performed by the operator, and then automatic start is performed, so that safety can be improved.

