Method for characterising bends for warning drivers

A method for characterizing the curvature of a road section, wherein the road section is described by an ordered series of points, each point being described by coordinates, the method comprises the implementation, by a computer, of:

• a) selecting, from among the points of the section, the points marking a curvature of the section,
• b) computing, for each selected point of the section contained between the second and the penultimate one, an indicator of curvature of the section at this point, the indicator of curvature of the section at a point being equal to the angular variation of the section at the current selected point divided by the distance between the current selected point and the previous selected point,
• c) identifying each bend contained in the road section, each bend comprising a set of selected points of the section, and
• d) for each bend contained in the road section, comparing the indicator of curvature of at least one of the points of the bend with a predetermined threshold, and
• e) if the indicator of curvature computed for at least one of the selected points of the bend exceeds the predetermined threshold, recording, in a database of bends, a data record comprising at least the set of points of the bend, and an item of data characterizing the curvature of the bend,
• f) receiving a request containing the location of a vehicle, and
• g) for each bend contained in a region of a given surface area around the location of the vehicle received in the request, transmitting, to said vehicle, the data record corresponding to said bend recorded in the database.