Sunday 22 July 2012

TomTom to help ease London traffic congestion

Sat Nav firm TomTom is extending the functionality of its Map Share service to help drivers in and around London to avoid travel disruptions over the next few weeks.

The company has created a map task force to process map changes related to temporary road closures, changes in traffic flow and additional turn restrictions as they happen across the capital.

TomTom will make these dynamic map changes available to its customers via Map Share on a daily basis, free of charge.

TomTom has worked closely with key stakeholders to capture and share the road changes. Their map experts predict that July 28th is likely to be the most disrupted travel day, when more than 9000 road changes in London will be introduced.

The next most congested day is likely to be August 1st when more than 3000 changes will be made.

Other severely disrupted days with a large number of road closures will include the 5th and 12th of August.

The sat nav company has a team of more than 20 people working on preparing and testing the additional daily map changes. They will continuously process all road changes in and around London throughout the sporting season.

After 6pm every single day, sat nav users will be able to download the following day's road changes to their navigation device and reset any changes no longer required from the previous day.

"We released our latest map update in May which included structural road changes in London and surrounding areas and points of interest relevant to the summer,” says Tom Brown, TomTom's UK Country Manager. “Now we are going one step further. We want to ensure that our customers drive with the most up to date map available, taking into account the dynamic road changes resulting from upcoming events in the capital. Our aim is to do all we can to give London drivers the best navigation experience possible.”

In general, apart from specific road closures on certain days, some restrictions will be in force until mid-August, which will affect routing in London throughout the period.

Map Share is available free of charge to all 65 million TomTom customers worldwide, including users of their iPhone app. It allows drivers to personalise the map on their own device, share their changes with the community and receive around 250,000 road changes per month from other users.

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