A method of detecting a start of a torque phase in clutch to clutch speed shift of a vehicular automatic transmission for simultaneously carrying out engagement and release of two frictional engaging elements provided to a reduction gear unit for switching speed stages of the reduction gear unit of the vehicular automatic transmission by connecting a turbine runner of a torque converter and an input shaft of the reduction gear unit to integrally rotate, said method comprising:
- detecting a rotational speed of either the input shaft or an output shaft of the reduction gear unit in the clutch to clutch speed shift;
- separating and extracting from the detected rotational speed a change component at a predetermined frequency or higher accompanied by generation of a transmission torque of an engaged side of the frictional engaging elements;
- and
- determining the start of the torque phase based on a reduction amount of the extracted change component.