Patent ID: 8855913

Claim:
An apparatus for planning a trips combination for driving a vehicle, comprising: a non-transitory storage device; and at least one of a navigation system and a computer configured to communicate with the storage device; the storage device has a trips database which stores a plurality of trips including at least a regular trip described by attributive information which shows habits of a user and which includes frequency information (i) showing a daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly periodic interval between similar trips, or (ii) indicating specific dates or dates of the trips; the at least one of the navigation system and the computer, sets, in a primary trip setting module, a primary trip to be combined into the trips combination; the at least one of the navigation system and the computer, sets, in a secondary trip setting module, a secondary trip combinable with the primary trip based on the attributive information stored in the trips database; the at least one of the navigation system and the computer evaluates, in an evaluating module, impact caused by the trips combination in which the primary trip and the secondary trip are combined; and the at least one of the navigation system and the computer proposes, in a proposing module, to a user, the trips combination in which the primary trip and the secondary trip are combined, wherein the proposing module proposes only the trips combination which is evaluated in the evaluating module to cause advantageous impact, the plurality of trips stored in the trips database include a plurality of regular trips, the primary trip setting module sets one of the regular trips stored in the trips database as the primary trip, the secondary trip setting module sets a regular trip as the secondary trip, the regular trip being another one of the regular trips stored in the trips database and being combinable with the primary trip, the proposing module proposes the trips combination which sequentially visits in a single route both destinations of the primary and secondary trips, and the frequency information, which describes the regular trip, is considered, in the secondary trip setting module, as an index indicative of flexibility which is a period of time in which the regular trip can be undertaken, and is used for setting the regular trip as the secondary trip.