Path Planning in Urban Area Using Local Features of the Road System

In this paper is proposed a tool for path planning in urban area. The proposed method can anticipate travel time for vehicles even for future dates and hours or can decide whether to revise the current path based on the local features of the road system ahead. Travelling time and waiting time are analyzed on several features of the road system, like pedestrian crossing, traffic lights, and roundabouts. These features are typical for cities in Europe, built around medieval settlements. The method can also be expanded to include other features as traffic accidents, meteorological conditions, cultural or sport activities which will perturb the normal traffic conditions. Finally, a simulation is performed to evaluate the proposed method using the A-star graph searching algorithm.