Posts tagged TeleNav Connected Service

A Tele Atlas "mapping van" - one way Tele Atlas monitors road changes

One of the major benefits of having a GPS navigation service that is Internet-connected (such as TeleNav GPS Navigator or TeleNav Shotgun with TeleNav Connected Service) is that you don’t have to worry about manually updating maps or business listings. Instead, this happens automatically for you because the information is stored on our server rather than on your phone or on your Shotgun.

As drivers, you may not think about what it takes to keep your phone or GPS device up to date with changing roads, construction and new businesses. Just think about changes in your city alone – or even on your block – new construction is everywhere and businesses go in and (unfortunately) out of business on nearly a daily basis.

To keep up with these ongoing changes, we work with a variety of leading content providers including Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ. Here is a link to an interesting article in Popular Science on how Tele Atlas gathers and maintains map content.

According to the article, Tele Atlas estimates that 10 to 15 percent of the areas it maps differ from year to year because of construction and other changes.  To monitor this, Tele Atlas uses 50 mapping vans (pictured here) that travel the country taking pictures every 10 feet. Those vans covered 350,000 miles last year alone, sending data to Tele Atlas to be analyzed and distributed to partners like TeleNav.

Next time you’re on the road, take a look around at the new roadway and building construction. Although these changes are happening more quickly than ever, advances in technology allow us to keep up and keep you headed in the right direction.