Mobile Mapping Van Launches in Bangkok Today; Fitted with Advanced Technologies to Create Richer Digital Maps and Enable Advanced Navigation and Safety Applications

Bangkok, Thailand—February 2, 2009—Tele Atlas, a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location-based solutions, today announced the company’s innovative Mobile Mapping technology will be deployed in Thailand, further demonstrating its commitment to delivering high quality digital map data around the world. The van in Thailand will focus on collecting data to ensure changes to the map are accurately reflected and to help generate advanced map features such as 3D landmarks, city blocks with textures and junction views to help generate maps that accurately reflect the urban landscape for a superior, safer navigation experience.

Tele Atlas currently has nearly 50 Mobile Mapping Vans driving around the world, traveling hundreds of thousands of kilometers each year. The company’s fleet in APAC has already covered Singapore and Taiwan. The deployment of the Mobile Mapping Van in Thailand marks the company’s commitment to deliver advanced features to customers worldwide.

Better Maps Developed for a Better Navigation Experience

Tele Atlas Mobile Mapping Vans are outfitted with cameras including one or more stereoscopic camera pairs, differential GPS hardware, an inertial measurement unit and computers to capture highly-detailed imagery of the entire road network and its surroundings. The Mobile Mapping Van fleet also includes vehicles equipped with lasers and ladybug 360° cameras. This combination of technology enables the vans with the unique ability to deliver a multi-dimensional, 360 degree view of the road for a high level of quality detail and precision at exceptional speed – up to 5 times faster – and more efficient than traditional vehicle collection methods.

Tele Atlas Mobile Mapping Van in Thailand will be used to verify changes in the road network, to determine width of roads and height of bridges, and to record the slope and banking of roads. The laser technology in combination with high resolution imagery will help generate texture of buildings for virtual reality 3D city modeling. This wealth of sophisticated context-specific map data that can be integrated with on-board automotive electronics, is already having an impact on both vehicle safety and efficiency, and is anticipated to have far-reaching effects on emerging Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) applications.

“Thailand is a key area in the automotive market and has strong potential in the burgeoning wireless market as well – both of which are critical to our industry partners as both in-car navigation systems and mobile applications rely on a rich combination of content to help users find a destination and arrive there safely,” said Tele Atlas Asia Pacific Chief Operating Officer Mark Steele. “Just over one year ago, we announced the formation of Tele Atlas Thailand. This announcement strengthens our commitment to Southeast Asia. We look forward to further supporting our regional customers to meet their needs for high quality digital maps and dynamic content with rich road network attributes and visual enhancements.”

In addition to the strength of its growing mobile subscriber base, Thailand currently represents a vital market for both automotive production and sales in Southeast Asia, with Global Insight estimating 590,000 passenger vehicles were sold in Thailand by the end of 2008, and expecting this figure to rise to 637,000 by the end of 2011.


Tele Atlas Thailand, a joint venture formed in 2007 between Tele Atlas and MappointAsia (Thailand), focuses on the production, maintenance, upgrade and commercialization of a navigable database, which is designed to be fully aligned with Tele Atlas’ global map offering and seamlessly integrated in the Southeast Asia regional solution. Based in Bangkok, the joint venture also serves as a regional competency center for the company to support all operations and coverage expansion for Tele Atlas in the Southeast Asia region.

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 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.


Contact:

Erin Delaney
Tele Atlas
Tel.: +1-617-570-6352
E-mail: Email Contact

Maureen Hoon
The Hoffman Agency for Tele Atlas
Tel.: +65-6252-2866
E-mail: Email Contact