After its introduction in the Netherlands and announcements in the UK, Germany, France and Switzerland, now its Belgium’s turn - TomTom has announced a joint venture with the Belgian mobile phone operator BASE to offer an HD Traffic service in Belgium. It’s expected to become operational around mid-2009.BASE
Mobile phone telco BASE, a daughter company of the Dutch Royal KPN, is the (self-proclaimed) fastest-growing mobile phone operator in Belgium. Recent acquisitions of Tele2 Belgium and Versatel Belgium by KPN allowed BASE the opportunity of greatly expanding its regional distribution.TomTom’s HD Traffic service has been operational in the Netherlands since November of last year. This technology uses anonymous data which is generated by mobile phones and combines this with existing traffic information sources. That way they are capable of determining where slowdowns occur and how long it will take travel from point A to B with greater accuracy.
With HD Traffic, users receive traffic updates every three minutes, which is up to five times faster than with other systems. The system is also not limited to motorways and important primary roads.
TomTom claims the system covers at least ten times as many roads as traditional systems.
