Process and apparatus for transmitting route information and analyzing a traffic network in a vehicular navigation system

Claim 1

A process for transmitting route data between a vehicle and a traffic center related to a route being traveled by the vehicle using a digital source map of a traffic network including edges connected by nodes representing the traffic network, the process comprising the steps of: storing a plurality of sets of rules for creating partial routes from the source map of the traffic network in a memory of the traffic center and in a memory of the vehicle; generating partial routes from the source map and respectively designating the partial routes with designators in accordance with a selected set of rules from the plural sets of rules, wherein each said partial route comprises at least one edge and at least one of said partial routes comprises a plurality of adjoining ones of said edges; and transmitting the route data between the traffic center and the vehicle by transmitting the designators representing the applicable partial routes that constitute the route being traveled by the vehicle, thereby optimizing an amount of route data to be transmitted via a transmission medium for the route being traveled by the vehicle, and transmitting one of the selected set of rules and a designator of the selected set of rules with the route data.