Computation of travel routes, durations, and plans over multiple contexts

摘要

A route planning system comprises a receiver component that receives a request for directions between a beginning point and a destination point. An analysis component analyzes a traffic system representation that varies as context varies and outputs expected amounts of travel time between the beginning point and the destination point for multiple contexts based at least in part upon the analysis. A method is described herein that includes techniques for searching over routes and trip start times simultaneously so as to identity start times and routes associated with maximal expected value, or equivalently minimum expected cost, given preferences encoded about one or more of the leaving time, the travel time, and the arrival time.

主权项

1. A system, comprising:
a receiver component configured to receive a request for directions between an origination point and a destination point submitted by a user; and an analysis component configured to identify a journey between the origination and destination points in response to the request, the analysis component configured to predict one or more characteristics of traffic flow at one or more road segments at one or more future times to calculate one or more estimated times corresponding to the identified journey, including being configured to predict a future time at which a road segment of the one or more road segments will be jammed; the analysis component configured to provide the identified journey and an estimated time for undertaking the identified journey to the user, the estimated time for undertaking the identified journey selected by the analysis component to enable the user to avoid the road segment when jammed.