A method, comprises determining, by a processor associated with a vehicle 105, occupancy information regarding a number of occupants in the vehicle; and indicating, the occupancy information in either or both of a human-perceivable way and a machine-perceivable way. The human-perceivable way may include controlling an indicator (such as a light bar or numerical display 112, 114, 122, 124, 126). The indication of occupancy may be by a wireless transmission using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications. The method may further comprise obtaining, additional occupancy information from one or more other vehicles and determining, based at least in part on the occupancy information and the additional occupancy information, a manoeuvring pattern to manoeuvre the vehicle when the vehicle is in a predefined condition. The predefined condition may be that the vehicle is involved in an unavoidable collision with at least one vehicle of the one or more vehicles, and the manoeuvring pattern comprises a pattern that manoeuvres the vehicle to crash into one of the one or more vehicles with a lower number of occupants i.e. the vehicle may make a choice to collide with a vehicle having a lower occupancy in order to avoid colliding with a vehicle of a higher occupancy. A further aspect of the disclosure comprises receiving, by a processor associated with a roadside traffic control infrastructure, occupancy information regarding a number of occupants in each of a plurality of vehicles; and managing, by the processor, one or more traffic flows based at least in part on the occupancy information.
Vehicle occupancy indication and utilization thereof
2018-09-19
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
IPC: | B60W CONJOINT CONTROL OF VEHICLE SUB-UNITS OF DIFFERENT TYPE OR DIFFERENT FUNCTION , Gemeinsame Steuerung oder Regelung von Fahrzeug-Unteraggregaten verschiedenen Typs oder verschiedener Funktion / G05D SYSTEMS FOR CONTROLLING OR REGULATING NON-ELECTRIC VARIABLES , Systeme zum Steuern oder Regeln nichtelektrischer veränderlicher Größen / G08G Anlagen zur Steuerung, Regelung oder Überwachung des Verkehrs , TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS |