Vehicular control apparatus and method for controlling automatic gear change

In the case where a cooperative gear change control of an automatic transmission (14) is executed on the basis of information with respect to a condition around a vehicle or in front of a vehicle, in a cooperative gear change control means (92), a gear change of the automatic transmission (14) is directly determined on the basis of actual curve information (a curvature radius (R) of a road) and road surface inclination information (an inclination (&thetas;R) of a road surface) in accordance with a previously stored downshift map, and a gear stage is switched such that a determined gear change is executed. Therefore, it is possible to directly obtain the gear stage or the gear ratio corresponding to the curve of the road and the road surface inclination.