Tele Atlas Gains Access to TomTom’s Unique Speed Profiles Database
Written by Tele Atlas
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Data covering 25 countries, 18 million kilometers across the European
and North American road networks, gives fastest routes to navigation
system users
‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, 25 September 2008 – Tele Atlas, a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location based solutions, has gained access to TomTom’s vast speed profiles database, which will be made available to Tele Atlas customers later this year in a uniform, global, low footprint format.
Speed profiles transform the navigation user experience because routes are calculated using real measurements instead of rough estimates. The speed profiles database is derived from almost half a trillion speed measurements that TomTom customers in 25 countries have been sharing with the company over the past two years, making it unique in terms of both size and richness. Today this speed profile database already provides highly accurate information about actual average speeds for every five minutes of the day on any day of the week on all of the roads in 23 European countries and 90 percent of the roads in the United States. To achieve this kind of accuracy, those 18 million kilometers of roads had to be driven and measured on average more than 2,000 times at different times of the day and during different days of the week.
Traditional systems use standardized estimates to calculate routes based on census data or legal speed limits, so routes are always the same regardless of the time, day or situation. “These estimates ignore many things that influence how people should drive to their destinations, such as the frequencies of traffic lights, lunch breaks at large schools, speed bumps, stop signs and awkward railway crossings, ” says Tele Atlas CEO Bill Henry. “Speed profiles actually contain this very specific and important local knowledge, enabling our customers to deliver unprecedented navigation quality—much better routes and much more accurate estimated times of arrival.”
Recent user tests with this speed profile database show impressive results. For the first time in history, the vast majority of users said that the routes produced by their navigation devices match the way they themselves would drive in areas they have known for years. “Clearly, Tele Atlas speed profiles deliver the best route to every possible destination,” says Henry.
About Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that power many of the world’s most essential navigation and location-based services (LBS). Through a combination of its own products and partnerships, Tele Atlas offers map coverage of more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The company was founded in 1984 and has more than 2,000 staff at offices in 24 countries around the world. Today, Tele Atlas maps are developed with the insight of a community of millions of GPS system users worldwide, who are adding to the company’s unmatched network of sources to track and validate changes in real time, and deliver the best digital maps and dynamic content. For more information, visit www.teleatlas.com. Tele Atlas is a subsidiary of TomTom N.V.
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