Course generation apparatus and vehicle control apparatus

A course generation apparatus comprising:

• an environmental information acquisitor that acquires environmental information of surroundings of a vehicle;
• an environmental-information course calculator that calculates a course on which a vehicle should advance, based on environmental information acquired by the environmental information acquisitor;
• a positioning device that positions a vehicle position, based on a signal from a positioning satellite;
• a route generator that generates an on-a-map route on which a vehicle should travel;
• a route information acquisitor that acquires information on a forward route of the vehicle position positioned by the positioning device, from the route generated by the route generator;
• a route-information course calculator that calculates a course on which a vehicle should advance, from the information on the forward route acquired by the route information acquisitor;
• a prohibition-section determinator that determines, in the case where the information on the forward route acquired by the route information acquisitor indicates merging with a main lane, that a present section is an environmental-information-course usage prohibition section, during a period from a time when the vehicle position positioned by the positioning device passes through a point before a merging starting point by a predetermined second distance to a time when the vehicle position passes through a merging completion point;
• and
• a course selector that selects a course calculated by the route-information course calculator in the environmental-information-course usage prohibition section and that selects a course calculated by the environmental-information course calculator or a course calculated by the route-information course calculator in a section other than the environmental-information-course usage prohibition section.