Traffic information apparatus comprising a message memory and a speech synthesizer

A module for generating traffic information messages which comprises, or is connected to, a vocabulary memory and means for reading therein digital data which constitute the description of vocabulary elements, each vocabulary element description being addressable by means of a code number designating a vocabulary element, characterized in that it comprises means for reading in the memory, for at least some vocabulary elements, on the one hand the alphanumerical characters of the relevant vocabulary element and on the other hand a sequence of digital data which defines the pronunciation of the relevant vocabulary element.

A computer readable medium embodying a vocabulary data structure a plurality of vocabulary elements, the data structure comprising, for each vocabulary element,

• a. a first respective field containing at least one respective alphanumeric character code corresponding to that vocabulary element;
• and
• b. a second respective field containing at least one respective digital pronunciation code corresponding to that vocabulary element, which pronunciation code is different from a corresponding character code in the first field and which pronunciation code unambiguously specifies a single respective phoneme with respect to which the corresponding character code is ambiguous, the single respective phoneme being for output by a speech synthesizer.