Tele Atlas to launch pedestrian maps

"Enhanced experience of walking down the street"

8 February 2008 14:08 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Tele Atlas will debut its first demo of maps based on Tele Atlas data designed for pedestrians at the Mobile World Congress event.

The company says the solution will suit either the busy executive seeking a more efficient way to get from the parking lot to a meeting location or a holiday traveller in a foreign city who needs to find the way back to the subway station near the hotel.

"Maps help us find what we want and provide the input we need to make informed choices. When the experience focuses on the pedestrian, the heightened need for precision, the need for specific extra content and the expectation of enhanced visual content must be met simultaneously", said Alain De Taeye, Tele Atlas CEO and co-founder.

"Incorporating pedestrian-specific attributes into the
Tele Atlas map database will help our partners create solutions that achieve comfort and safety and also feature enhancements that provide an enhanced experience of walking down the street."

"Such products will help users better orient themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, walk via pedestrian-friendly routes, select shortest routes, or with some devices and solutions - even enable them to travel with full door-to-door information for journeys that require both a vehicle and walking."

Tele Atlas maps featuring pedestrian-specific attributes are
available for 18 countries (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom).

This includes pedestrian attributes for 117 cities across
Europe, with an average of 80km of paths and roadways in each city centre to help pedestrians get to their destination via the shortest accessible route possible.

Additional coverage, including cities in the Asia Pacific region are expected to be added later in the year.