Driving assistance device and driving assistance method

A driving assistance method executed by a driving assistance device that recognizes a lane marking around an own vehicle with at least one sensor, wherein the driving assistance device includes an arithmetic device that executes predetermined processing and a storage device that is connected to the arithmetic device, the driving assistance method comprising:

• a lane marking detection procedure in which the arithmetic device detects lane marking information from data acquired by the sensor;
• a lane marking type candidate estimation procedure in which the arithmetic device recognizes a lane marking type from the detected lane marking information and calculates a likelihood of each lane marking type;
• a lane marking branch point estimation procedure in which the arithmetic device detects a lane marking type branch point that is a point at which a likelihood of the lane marking type changes with respect to an advancing direction of the own vehicle, and distinguishes regions before and after the lane marking type branch point as a first region and a second region;
• and
• a lane marking information integration procedure in which, in a case where a lane marking of the first region and a lane marking of the second region have a same lane marking type, the arithmetic device integrates the lane marking of the first region and the lane marking of the second region into a continuously recognizable lane marking.