Realt time traffic information and mobile phone connectivity will be standard features in navigation devices in the future however mapping operators like Google are having trouble getting access to real time data in Australia.
At a recent Google press conference to launch real time scheduling information and mapping for public transport in Perth senior Google executives said that the owners of real time data including traffic camera video was not available as the owners of the data were holding back on supplying the data.
By 2013, 34 percent of all personal navigation devices (PNDs) worldwide will offer mobile phone or Wi-Fi-connected services such as real-time traffic, live local searches or updatable maps, according to ABI Research.
Principal analyst Dominique Bonte said 1.2 million PNDs will offer cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity worldwide in 2008, compared with 43 million in 2013.
ABI Research said the most promising aspect of two-way connectivity is its ability to upload data in real time so that users can make instant map corrections and engage in other forms of networking, including participating in traffic network updates, as in the new Dash Navigation system.
“There will be two trends,” he claimed. One will be in low-cost, sub-$100, very basic PNDs, and the other will be in high-end PNDs with “real-time traffic, dynamic content, location-based services, social networking, tracking and friend-finder functions.”
