TomTom 2014 Annual Report Download - page 12

Traffic congestion continues to increase in urban areas around the world. As the number of cars on the global road network grows, people
will find themselves stuck in more jams than ever before. Transportation authorities are looking for new solutions to monitor, manage and
control traffic, to measure long-term trends, and to make informed investment decisions.
TomTom creates precise and up-to-date traffic information for highways, major roads and secondary roads on a global scale. Our real-time
traffic information is a vital tool for drivers and government authorities to save time and resources by reducing congestion. We provide highly
accurate measurements of traffic jams and delays for better route calculation, which helps drivers to make better decisions that save time,
reduce stress and make the roads a safer place. Along with real-time traffic products, our historical database continues to be a standard source
of data in the government sector, used by governments and local authorities to improve traffic flow on congested road networks enabling
to plan smart traffic solutions.
TomTom Traffic platform
To achieve the quality and road coverage of TomTom Traffic, we use a wide range of GPS
probe data from fleets, PNDs, smartphones, in-dash system and other data sources to
generate precise real-time traffic information.
Our traffic fusion system combines the data from all available sources and enriches it with
traffic flow and incident data for the entire road network. End-users are then updated
every two minutes with the latest information about the road ahead. Location referencing
and standardised delivery protocols are key features of any traffic service. TomTom Traffic
is created in modular and independent components that can be delivered using common
industry standards such as the Traffic Messaging Channel (TMC), Datex-2 and Transport
Protocol Experts Group (TPEG), for use with TomTom or third-party navigation software.
In 2009, we introduced our new dynamic location referencing system OpenLR, which has
developed into the new open-source industry standard for advanced, map-independent
location referencing after successful market adoption by leading OEMs and business
partners. Each independent traffic component is delivered 'over the air' direct to user
devices, or 'over the internet' to customer distribution servers. An important source of
traffic content is our own community, which generates over 5 billion anonymous speed
measurements each day.
Since 2007, we have built a traffic data archive of over 12 trillion probe measurements, which we utilise for congestion level benchmarking
and long-term trend analysis. This data enables us to create TomTom Traffic Index, a global benchmark that is published annually comparing
congestion levels and the impact they have on over 220 cities worldwide.
In 2014, TomTom became the first company to use real-time weather information to calculate accurate routes and arrival times. TomTom
Traffic now warns drivers about upcoming delays caused by rain or snow, so they can take faster, smarter decisions on every journey.
We continued to expand our global footprint. TomTom's historic and real-
time traffic information is now available in over 40 countries including
China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the
United Arab Emirates, which all launched in 2014.
Business outlook
In 2015, we will continue to strengthen our traffic service, as we know the
number of cars on the road network is increasing, congestion is building
and travel times are becoming longer. We aim to make TomTom Traffic
relevant to all road users. 2015 will also focus on further geographical
expansion.
Includes Chile, Mexico, Greece, Hungary and Slovakia, which launched
in the beginning of 2015.
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