Patent ID: 8897999

Claim:
A section setting method comprising: collecting fuel efficiency information with a processor, which is information related to fuel efficiency of a vehicle that travels along a single path from a starting point to a destination point and is obtained under a plurality of types of vehicle operations together with location information of the vehicle at each time; forming a plurality of change patterns wherein each change pattern contains the collected fuel efficiency information of the vehicle that travels along the single path from the starting point to the destination point; comparing change patterns in the collected fuel efficiency information for each of the location information; connecting change pattern sections, which are parts of the change patterns, sequentially from the starting point to the destination point based on a result of the comparison; setting, as a section to be used for calculation of actual fuel efficiency, a section that is obtained by dividing a route at positions corresponding to connection points of the connected change pattern sections using a fuel-efficiency generation device; setting a proximate range-determining value for determining whether a distance of a section that is obtained by dividing the route based on the connection points is within a proximate range of a section that is immediately before or after the section; integrating the sections that are before and after the connection point into one section if the distance is less than or equal to the proximate range-determining value; and fixing the sections that are before and after the connection point as separate sections if the section exceeds the proximate range-determining value.