TomTom has announced a "manifesto" for reducing traffic. Sat nav CEO Harold Goddijn announced the move at an event in London yesterday, alongside version 4.0 of the HD Traffic – that will also come to head unit TomTom-based devices, too.
Goddijn says that if 10 per cent of the TomTom userbase were to use HD traffic, it "would reduce journey times for everyone – five per cent in Europe. And that's where we want to go. We are on a mission...we are committed to make this work and do our bit for society and our customers.
"Collectively we will make better use of existing road capacity."
Goddijn added that the HD Traffic system can now report a problem to a driver within two minutes – a remarkable achievement. But those figures only apply to 'connected' drivers – only about one per cent of TomTom's 45 million-strong userbase. About 20 per cent of that connected number – 200,000 – are British.
But Goddijn is undeterred and says that TomTom really can influence traffic flow in the future "[We're] trying to understand the problem of traffic...it's something we can influence. It's a problem we all know. It's a global issue. It has a lot of consequences...it costs time, it's a great stress.
"When we started TomTom we said we needed to understand this issue. It's now time to start changing conventional wisdom. I don't think that's the case...I think we can change traffic and do something about it."
The TomTom Traffic Manifesto is essentially a plan to get as many people using TomTom connected devices and so get better traffic information – and make more money from the extra subscription cost of connected devices, of course.
As part of the plan, TomTom will also supply traffic information to other sources, such as radio stations.
Goddijn also stated the organisation now has navigable data for 100 countries. The company takes an incredible 600 million speed measurements every day.
