NAVTEQ Reaches New Milestone in Western Europe

NAVTEQ announces a big milestone in Western Europe, as they have achieved "100% Detailed coverage" which to them means detailed coverage and verification of all roads in the road network. I have to say that this must be no small task; having driven some of the roads over there, I thought the cow paths around New England were confusing.... wow, there are some decent knots to work out in mapping Western European roads that may have been around for several hundred years. I would imagine with all of the activity in Western Europe for them, that they are stepping up the battle for European contracts vs. TeleAtlas.

“Customers tell us that map accuracy is the most important criteria when selecting map data,” stated Mary Hardwick, Vice President of Product Management for NAVTEQ. “And complete Detailed Coverage represents the highest real-world accuracy available from NAVTEQ. Additionally, developing the database to a single data specification across all Western Europe countries affords our customers the efficiency to provide pan-regional solutions.”

Press release follows...

NAVTEQ achieved the major milestone of 100% complete Detailed Coverage of Western Europe. With the Q4/06 release of complete Detailed Coverage for Western Europe, all navigable and named roads in Western Europe have been fully verified to the NAVTEQ® data specification. One hundred percent Detailed Coverage is NAVTEQ’s highest database specification level meaning all roads in the road network are included and database attributes have been verified. Attributes allow navigation applications to avoid legal and physical restrictions and provide important driver information such as number of lanes in each direction of travel, speed limits and special speed situations. Also included are over 60 categories of Points of Interest (POIs) throughout Western Europe that assist users in selecting their destination and routing to more than 1.5 million businesses like restaurants, stores and gas stations.

Supporting NAVTEQ’s efforts in Europe is a staff of over 300 geographic analysts who have driven millions of kilometers of road to collect and verify the navigable attributes that enable accurate turn-by-turn guidance. “Changes in collection and verification processes have improved tremendously over time,” stated veteran geographic analyst Pieter Feijen who created some of the first maps in the Netherlands in the early nineties. Feijen, now Netherlands Country Manager for NAVTEQ, elaborated on the changes in the build process. “Initially, Germany was created using topographic paper maps. By the late-nineties every link in Luxemburg was edited using large scale aerial photographs. Today we leverage over 80,000 sources from satellite imagery to in-vehicle video capture to provide a quality map experience for our customers.”

“One hundred percent detailed coverage of Western Europe is a testament to our committed staff of geographic analysts,” stated Torsten Krenz, Vice President of Global Expansion in NAVTEQ’s Digital Mapping Operations. “Even though the database includes over six million KM of navigable road network, our geographic analysts have driven over fourteen million KM to not only create the original detailed coverage, but to also maintain that level of coverage in completed geographic areas.”

January 31, 2007

NAVTEQ Reaches New Milestone in Western Europe