Vehicular shift control unit and vehicular automatic shift control method

A vehicular automatic shift control unit for executing a cooperative shift control (an upshift inhibition and a downshift) of an automatic transmission (14) based on an information associated with a road condition in front of a vehicle or a road condition in front of the vehicle, is provided with judging means (96, SD1) for judging whether a vehicle exists in a predetermined area (AD) including a branch point of the road during execution of the cooperative shift control, and gear ratio maintaining control means (104, SD5) for maintaining a gear ratio of the automatic transmission (14) if it is judged that the vehicle exists in the predetermined area (AD).