Method for identifying a place, and terminal and central unit therefor

A terminal unit, comprising:

• a storage with a program stored in the storage for carrying out a method for identifying a name of a starting location or destination or current location of a route in the navigation terminal unit based on a plurality of characters which are a component of the name, the method including entering the characters into the terminal unit, interrogating the characters in the terminal unit as a character string, determining whether the interrogated character string corresponds to a start of a further character string contained in a list of exceptions, the further character string being contained in a plurality of names, asking a user to enter additional characters of the name when it is determined that the interrogated character string is contained in the exception list, and introducing a process for unambiguous identification without further characters of the name being entered when it is determined that the interrogated character string is not contained in the exception list, the exception list being held in the storage and being a list of character strings which form beginnings of the names in the positive list, the names being in a quantity such that a transmission of the names from a central station to the terminal unit would cause an effort lying above a limit value;
• a process for running the program so that the determining is carried out;
• and
• a communications device for communicating with the central station.

A central station, comprising:

• a storage containing a positive list of names;
• a program stored in the storage for carrying out a method for identifying a name of a starting location or destination or current location of a route in a navigation terminal unit based on a plurality of characters which are a component of the name, the method including entering the characters into the terminal, interrogating the characters in the terminal unit as a character string, determining whether the interrogated character string corresponds to a start of a further character string contained in a list of exceptions, the further character string being contained in a plurality of names, asking a user to enter additional characters of the name when it is determined that the interrogated character string is contained in the exception list, and introducing a process for unambiguous identification without further characters of the name being entered when it is determined that the interrogated character string is not contained in the exception list, the exception list being a list of character strings which form beginnings of the names in the positive list, the names being in a quantity such that a transmission of the names from the central station to the terminal unit would cause an effort lying above a limit value;
• a process for running the program;
• and
• a communication device for communicating with at least one terminal unit.