Navigation and traffic information services provider TomTom has announced that, in a single month, it has made 1.5 billion changes to the digital maps that are delivered to its worldwide customers on a weekly basis.
The company says this latest milestone is key to its mission to help shape the future of mobility in a world that increasingly relies on digital maps as an accurate representation of reality.
On average, TomTom’s map is updated more than 570 times a second, with the changes consisting of a mixture of geometry and road features and may include new points of interest (POIs), altered road junctions or new addresses. The company’s maps are delivered to auto makers, Tier 1 suppliers, technology companies and developers on a weekly basis. The 1.5 billion map changes in a month equates to 49.3 million changes per day, or 2.1 million changes per hour.
Over the past few years, TomTom has optimized professional mapmaking techniques with the use of community input from hundreds of millions of map users worldwide, GPS probe data from 550 million connected devices, local map technicians, and a fleet of mobile mapping vehicles.
The company’s transactional map production platform, with continuous integration, uses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure short cycle times between detecting changes in the real world and updating the map, with guaranteed quality levels. This level of scalability allows TomTom to deal with any level of detail in both its navigation map and high definition (HD) map for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).
The company notes that its digital representation of reality is now more accurate and is delivered faster than ever before. By capturing more than 1.5 billion map updates in July, TomTom’s business customers have access to an additional:
• 820,210 miles (1.32m km) of roads, enabling more accurate routing;
• 5.9 million POIs, ensuring that users can find whatever they are searching for;
• 2.6 million address points, enhancing routing and geocoding accuracy.
This location-based mapmaking data is used to support the company’s portfolio, which includes: embedded automotive navigation solutions; personal navigation devices and apps; and advanced telematics fleet management and connected car services. Its advanced digital maps cover 142 countries, and the company’s hyper-detailed and real-time TomTom Traffic information service reaches more than five billion people in 69 countries.
“The time between a change happening in the real world and this change being reflected in our map is now much shorter than ever before. Every change that happens in our map is quality guaranteed, so not only can we scale beyond other mapmakers, it also comes with the right level of quality for even the most demanding applications,” explained Alain De Taeye, a member of TomTom’s management board.
“To shape the future of mobility, 1.5 billion changes to our maps in a single month proves the scalability of our unique production platform, and brings us a step closer to real-time maps. We’re excited to be driving this future.”
