Patent ID: 7324893

Claim:
A traffic management system for managing vehicle traffic, comprising: a vehicle-mounted unit having a vehicle-mounted communication unit having a function to communicate with a center device, for performing an interconnection process for user authentication when entering a predetermined radio-wave zone, using an individual vehicle ID assigned to each vehicle, and sending fault information in the event of a fault occurring on the vehicle; a radio unit disposed on a road and having a radio communication unit having a function to provide the radio-wave zone for the vehicle and to relay communications between the center device and the vehicle-mounted unit, for sending interconnection process completion information to the center device when the interconnection process for connection to the vehicle is completed, receiving a predicted time at which the vehicle is expected to travel across the radio unit, and sending an overtime to the center device if the vehicle does not connect to the radio unit after elapse of the predicted time; and a center device having a traffic information manager for, when the interconnection process completion information is received, calculating the speed of the vehicle from an inter-radio unit distance and an interconnection time at which the vehicle connects to the radio unit, calculating a predicted time at which the vehicle is expected to pass across a next radio unit from the speed of the vehicle and the distance up to the next radio unit, and sending the predicted time to the radio unit, for, when the fault information is received, sending traffic information including alarm information through the radio unit to vehicles traveling near a site where the fault has occurred on the vehicle, for, when the overtime is received, determining whether the fault has occurred or not, and for, when it is judged that the fault has occurred, sending traffic information including alarm information through the radio unit to vehicles traveling near a site where the fault has occurred on the vehicle.