VEHICLE ROUTE PLANNING SYSTEM

A vehicle route planning system (10) has an in-vehicle route planning computer (12) which receives trip data, including at least one destination. Trip data is provided to the computer either by a wireless communication link between a remotely located radio transmitter (44) and an antenna (20) on the vehicle (11) or by a remotely located media writer device (46) writing the trip information on a removable storage media device (30) which is then provided to an in-vehicle media reader device (31). In this manner a vehicle operator may enter trip data into a remotely located apparatus (at 40) which translates this trip data into electrical signals that are then subsequently coupled to the in-vehicle route planning computer (12) which then uses this data for calculating at least one desired route for the vehicle to the specified destination via fixed road paths. Preferably the route planning system (10) is part of a vehicle navigation system (10). Preferably the system (10) utilizes radio receiver apparatus (20, 21) for transmitting the trip data to the in-vehicle route planning computer (12) wherein some of this radio receiver apparatus (20, 21) is also utilized to couple dynamic route traffic information, other than information specified by the vehicle operator, to the in-vehicle route planning computer (12).