[OSM-talk] Outperforming TomTom

[Maarten Deen]

On 2013-09-12 10:07, Lester Caine wrote:
> Johan C wrote:
> Unfortunately not available everywhere yet, but as a step towards 
> becoming the
> best map in the world: after the publication of open address data in 
> the
> Netherlands two years ago, starting this month open traffic data will 
> be
> available in The Netherlands 
> http://www.ndw.nu/pagina/nl/103/datalevering/ This
> will mean that OSM navigation apps will be able to outperform TomTom 
> due to the
> better road quality. Hopefully the rest of Europe can follow soon. This 
> would
> inevitably mean headlines in major newspapers and therefore a huge 
> increase in
> mappers. Let's rock!
> 
> It always amuses me that 'the cloud' was originally about using all of
> the spare processing power available and sharing out problems. Since
> the majority of sat nav's are now smart devices, why can't they all be
> reporting back the average speed where they are so we can
> automatically map the current traffic hot spots? To my mind that is
> the next logical step for the routing software?
> Of cause some will complain about 'privacy' but personally I'd be
> happy for people to know where I am, so a permanent sat nav in the car
> rather than one in my pocket makes even more sense if I want to know
> where my car has gone ;)

That is already being done with cellphones: [1] (dutch).
The problem with conventional sat-nav is that they were not connected to 
the could. Only recently cellphones (smartphones) have become powerful 
and usable enough to be used for navigation. Furthermore: it requires an 
active data connection, something I don't have or want (and I'm probably 
not the only one, no I don't want everyone to know where I am).
GSM is a much better tool for this anyway.
Traffic information was always sent to satnav devices using FM.

[1] 
<http://verkeer.wikia.com/wiki/Verkeersmonitoring_met_Floating_Car_Data_via_GSM>

Maarten