Data Mining in a Digital Map Database to Identify Insufficient Merge Lanes Along Roads and Enabling Precautionary Actions in a Vehicle

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a database, wherein the database includes data that represents a road network in a geographic region and wherein the database is operable as a component in a vehicle system that provides warnings when approaching potentially hazardous locations, wherein the database comprises:

• data records that represent road segments that make up the road network;
• data that indicates a first condition along the road segments;
• and
• data that indicates precautionary action locations, wherein a precautionary action location is associated with a location at which at least one geographic feature satisfies the first condition at the location and at least one geographic feature in a vicinity of the location satisfies a second condition such that the vehicle system need only perform a single evaluation to determine whether the precautionary data exists in the database to determine whether a precautionary action is to be taken upon approach to the potentially hazardous location, and wherein at least a portion of said data that indicates precautionary action location has been validated by human analyst, subsequent to the automatic determination of the satisfaction of the first and second conditions, as being associated with a location which is actually hazardous based on an inspection thereof.

A vehicle system comprising:

• a database that contains data representing a geographic region in which a vehicle is being operated, wherein the data includes data that represents a road network located in the geographic region and precautionary action data that indicates precautionary action locations associated with locations where it has been automatically determined that at least one geographic feature satisfies a first condition at the location and at least one geographic feature in a vicinity of the location satisfies a second condition such that the vehicle system need only perform a single evaluation to determine whether the precautionary data exists in the database to determine whether a precautionary action is to be taken upon approach to the potentially hazardous location, and wherein at least a portion of said data that indicates precautionary action location has been validated by a human analyst, subsequent to the automatic determination of the satisfaction of the first and second conditions, as being associated with a location which is actually hazardous based on an inspection thereof;
• a positioning system that determines a current location of the vehicle relative to the data in the database representing a geographic region;
• and
• a precautionary action application executed on a processor and responsive to the positioning system and the database wherein the precautionary action application determines whether the precautionary data exists in the database in associate with the current location of the vehicle and, based thereon, provides a precautionary action when the positioning system determines that the precautionary data exists in the database indicative that the current location of the vehicle is approaching a location where the first and second conditions are satisfied.

A method performed with a program executed on a processor in a vehicle system for providing precautionary actions in a vehicle comprising:

• accessing, by a processor, a database that includes data representations of a road network;
• determining, by the processor, a current position of the vehicle relative to the road network represented by the database;
• and
• upon determining, by the processor, that data representations of a part of the road network around the current position of the vehicle includes precautionary action data, the precautionary action data having been automatically been determined as being indicative of a location where at least one geographic feature satisfies a first condition at the location and at least one geographic feature in a vicinity of the location satisfies a second condition, taking, by the processor, a precautionary action, based on the inclusion of precautionary action data in the data representation of the part of the road network around the current position of the vehicle as the vehicle is approaching the location, wherein at least a portion of the data representations of a part of the road network around the current position of the vehicle which include data that indicates a precautionary action location where the first and second conditions are satisfied have been validated by a human analyst, subsequent to the automatic determination of the satisfaction of the first and second conditions, as being associated with a location which is actually hazardous based on an inspection.