| CPC G01C 21/343 (2013.01) | 9 Claims |
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1. A travel time estimation system for estimating a time required to travel between a pair of addresses at a desired travel time, comprising:
one or more memories that store program instructions and data;
a processor that is configured to execute program instructions in order to perform the steps of:
receiving a current trip request with the pair of addresses and the desired travel time;
converting the pair of received addresses into a pair of grid points (Encoded Addresses—EAs) in an array of regularly spaced grid points in a Cartesian coordinate system;
for each EA of the current trip request, reading from an electronic memory that stores a record of an associated unique covering grid point (Unique Encoded Address—UEA) for the EA, where the unique covering grid point (UEA) is selected from a set of UEAs that have been determined from EAs of previous trip requests such that each EA of the previous trip requests is associated with a single UEA and each UEA is located no more than a predetermined maximum distance away from the associated EA of the previous trip requests in the Cartesian coordinate system;
reading an estimated travel time from the electronic memory that stores a record of one or more estimated travel times for a pair of UEAs that are associated with the EAs of the current trip request; and
returning the estimated travel time between the UEAs at the desired travel time as the time required to travel between the pair of addresses of the current trip request at the desired travel time.
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