Navteq Joins Caltrans Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Effort

September 2, 2008

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has selected NAVTEQ to support deployment of the Connected Traveler program as part of Caltrans' United States Dept. of Transportation (DOT) SAFE TRIP-21 contract.

Caltrans recently received $2.9 million from DOT as part of Caltrans' $12.9 million program to test various technologies designed to reduce gridlock, improve traveler safety and enhance public transportation services. The program is designed to accelerate deployment of vehicle infrastructure integration using consumer mobile devices to deliver various related services, according to Caltrans. Some key services and applications being reportedly being tested under this program include collection of real-time traffic data utilizing consumer mobile devices; use of commercial and transit vehicles enabled with consumer devices as collection technology; and implementation of in-vehicle alert functionality.

In collaboration with the University of California-Berkeley's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and the California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT), GPS-equipped Nokia mobile phones will be deployed to collect real-time traffic information. The real-time speed and flow data will be transmitted to local and remote traffic management centers from the phones of several thousand volunteer commuters and transit vehicles traveling within a 200-mile radius of the San Francisco Bay Area, according to Caltrans.

Using its proprietary processing technology, NAVTEQ will aggregate and process the probe data, integrate it with other NAVTEQ Traffic data sources and distribute it back to the travelers who provide the data from their mobile phones. The data will be referenced to the NAVTEQ map and will reportedly also be available for distribution, via a variety of channels, to multiple consumer devices including personal navigation devices, in-vehicle systems and mobile phones.

NAVTEQ will also provide specific roadway signage attributes such as speed limits, highway exit information, and incident information. The objective of the project is to advance the development of a vehicle infrastructure integration system, which uses Wi-Fi and dedicated short range communications to alert drivers of potentially unsafe conditions, according to Navteq.

The SAFE TRIP-21 technology will be launched and displayed at the 15th Annual World Congress on ITS, which takes place November 16-20, 2008 in New York City.

Bookmark it: digg propeller del.icio.us technorati yahoo facebook

Add Comment