Patent ID: 8744736

Claim:
A self-contained vehicular traffic travel time information system for a vehicle in an inter-vehicle ad-hoc network, comprising: an on-board vehicular broadcasting unit including a transmitter and receiver for communicating with other vehicles within the inter-vehicle ad hoc network; a positioning device for determining the vehicle's position throughout a course of travel; an on-board vehicle processing unit for storing road segments throughout the vehicle path of travel, the on-board vehicle processing unit determining a starting position and an ending position for each respective road segment, and determining a length of time for traveling through each respective road segment; and a memory storage device for storing the segmented road portions and the time of travel associated with each respective road segment; wherein the on-board vehicular broadcasting unit disseminates the determined travel times of recently traveled road segments via a broadcast message to other vehicles within the inter-vehicle ad hoc network, wherein a travel time estimation for a respective segment is determined by the time of travel of the vehicle traveling through the segment and historical time of travel obtained for the segment, the travel time estimation represented by the formula: {circumflex over (T)} Segment ( t )=α T Segment ( t )+β( {circumflex over (T)} Segment ( t− 1)) wherein {circumflex over (T)} Segment (t) travel time for a current traveled segment at time (t), α is a first aggregating function, T Segment (t) are travel time records received from others for the current traveled segment, β is a second aggregating function, {circumflex over (T)} Segment (t−1) is historical time data record for a respective segment.