Automatic discovery of optimal routes for flying cars and drones

A method comprising:

• identifying, by a corridor determination apparatus comprising a processor, a memory storing map data encoding a topology of at least a portion of a road network, and a communication interface configured to communicate via at least one network, one or more potential drone and/or flying car (DFC) corridors based on the topology of the at least a portion of the road network, each of the one or more potential DFC corridors corresponding to an origin-destination (OD) pair comprising (a) an origin node or point of interest in the at least a portion of the road network and (b) a destination node or point of interest in the at least a portion of the road network,
• wherein the identified one or more potential DFC corridors have a difference between a direct path from the origin node to the destination node and a road network path from the origin node to the destination node along the road network greater than a predetermined difference threshold;
• receiving, by the corridor determination apparatus, a plurality of instances of probe data from a plurality of vehicle apparatuses, wherein (a) each vehicle apparatus is onboard a vehicle, (b) each vehicle apparatus comprises a location sensor, and (c) each instance of probe data comprises position data, the position data indicates a location of the vehicle at a time when the position data was captured and is determined by the location sensor;
• determining, by the corridor determination apparatus, trajectories through the at least a portion of the road network traveled by one or more vehicle apparatuses of the plurality of vehicle apparatuses, the determining of the trajectories based at least in part on the plurality of instances of probe data and the map data;
• determining, by the corridor determination apparatus and based on the trajectories, a volume of traffic for a path through the at least a portion of the road network corresponding to the OD pair for each potential DFC corridor of the one or more potential DFC corridors;
• determining, by the corridor determination apparatus and based on the trajectories and instances of probe data corresponding to the trajectories, a delay metric indicating traffic conditions along the path through the at least a portion of the road network corresponding to the OD pair for each potential DFC corridor of the one or more potential DFC corridors;
• determining, by the corridor determination apparatus, a traffic metric for the path through the at least a portion of the road network corresponding to the OD pair for each potential DFC corridor of the one or more potential DFC corridors, the traffic metric determined based on a combination of the volume of traffic, the delay metric, and a measure of the topology of the road network,
• ranking the one or more potential DFC corridors based on the corresponding traffic metrics to augment the road network.