Innovative Processes Deliver More ADAS-Quality Map Content, Precise Global Road Network Geometry

LAS VEGAS — (BUSINESS WIRE) — March 23, 2010 — Tele Atlas, the world leader in high quality digital maps and dynamic content, today unveiled the latest version of its database, MultiNet® 2010.03. With more than 32 million kilometers (20 million miles), Tele Atlas maps cover more roads, more countries and more people than any other available map, with comprehensive location and navigation content of 95 countries and territories in Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

“Our strategy is to deliver the highest quality and most up-to-date location and navigation content available. We continue to invest in critical geographies, as well as build out more advanced features in developing markets,” said Peter Davie, director of product management, Tele Atlas. “By delivering new products and offerings, including innovations based on community input, we are able to meet our global customer needs and deliver the content that will differentiate their offerings.”

With the latest release of MultiNet, Tele Atlas has also further enhanced the content for its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) compliant products. Tele Atlas ADAS is designed to bring a new level of quality to eco-routing and vehicle safety applications, helping drivers save money and better protect themselves and their families. Tele Atlas ADAS is the first gradient and curvature enhancement data product to use community input and other authoritative sources as the basis for ADAS solutions that help drivers navigate more safely, efficiently and with greater accuracy than ever before. The latest maps feature the addition of gradient data based on anonymous GPS measurements on approximately 95,000 kilometers (59,000 miles) of roads in North America and 225,000 kilometers (140,000 miles) of major roads across Europe, a 400 percent increase in Europe in ADAS compliant coverage from the product’s initial release in January 2010.

Tele Atlas continues to demonstrate advancements in leveraging anonymous GPS measurements in combination with other sources and processes to validate and realign or extend the world’s road network. The newest maps now contain input from drivers in 35 countries across 18 features that changed crossings into roundabouts, added or adjusted street names, adjusted traffic flow and added streets. Changes include new road geometry across Europe in countries such as Croatia, Poland and Turkey, to expand the global road network.

The latest release also features notable updates around the world, including:

• Content to enable key functionality such as address locating with house number expansion in the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Turkey;
• Expanded coverage, including the recently announced navigable maps of Ukraine which cover the country’s complete major and interconnecting road networks, the creation and expansion of street network and fully-attributable coverage in Russia;
• New availability of map coverage for Uruguay and for Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Mali and Mauritania in Africa;
• Augmented attribution for approximately 52,000 kilometers (32,000 miles) in Germany and 30,000 kilometers (18,600 miles) in Spain to enable appropriate routing that helps keep drivers off undesirable roads, such as logging roads;
• Delivery of the first Address Point product in Russia to identify the precise location of destinations for spatial analysis and application display;
• Rich content to enhance Tele Atlas Urban Maps, including additional metro station points of interest (POIs) and pedestrian walkways in Greece, Italy and Germany, and;
• More advanced database features such as signposts and speeds in South Africa and the Middle East, including United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

How Tele Atlas Maps are Made
Tele Atlas has the only digital map database in the world that is updated daily with the insight of a community of millions of GPS system users worldwide, who along with the company’s unmatched network of sources help to track and validate changes. To date, Tele Atlas has validated and processed more than more than 1.5 million edits sourced from this group of users, the largest GPS data collection community in the world.

To update its maps, Tele Atlas captures and verifies changes from a comprehensive network of global sources, ranging from government documents and public safety officials to construction companies, professional truck drivers, its own drivers, proprietary mobile mapping van technology, as well as satellite and aerial imagery. By validating and adding contributions from individual drivers as an additional source, Tele Atlas is able to increase the total number of changes identified by its network, particularly in geographically dispersed and rural areas covered less frequently by other data sources. This community input is backed by stringent review and validation processes and further enables Tele Atlas to create fresher, higher quality maps and deliver a better experience for end users of its maps.