Patent ID: 7526268

Claim:
A method for operating a traffic management system on-board a vehicle, said system comprising a controlling program, a traffic incident filter in communication with the controlling program, and a retained memory associated with the controlling program, comprising: receiving at least current location information from a global positioning system (GPS) satellite; receiving at least a selectable threshold range value; relating said selectable threshold range value to said current location information to determine a dynamically variable zone of interest selectable by the user; receiving, on-board the vehicle from a satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) satellite, a broadcast comprising a plurality of incident reports, each said incident report comprising pertinent information and a point of interest based upon a bearing value and a range value; correlating data from said broadcast to data stored in a local database using a virtual language; processing, by the traffic incident filter on-board the vehicle, each said incident report by comparison to at least one bearing threshold value and at least one range threshold value for determining if the point of interest is within the zone of interest; selectively retaining, in the retained memory on-board the vehicle, an incident report for only those points of interest within the zone of interest; and purging from the retained memory any incident report that exceeds a staleness parameter selectable by the user.