Chicago-based Navteq has been getting ready for tourists heading to SA for the Fifa Soccer World Cup, in mid-year, by ensuring its Southern Africa maps are up to date.
Irvine Aitcheson, country GM, says the company made sure it had accurate information on streets and construction in preparation for the event. Navteq collects its information by having drivers moving around the streets and inputting data.
Navteq's market share is growing in SA, although Aitcheson is unable to provide specific figures. However, he says there are 100 million users of the company's data every day across the globe.
Information provided by the mapping services includes traffic alerts, speed limits, points-of-interest, as well as pedestrian mapping. The company also makes use of location-based advertising, which targets messages at people within specific vicinities.
Moving north
Navteq has 28 million kilometres of road in its database, and makes up to two million map changes a day. Of its road database, 770 000km are in SA, and the company is expanding its coverage north of the continent, says Boris Puddy, product marketing manager for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
Puddy explains that the company covers SA and most of its bordering countries, but has limited maps further north, an area it aims to expand into.
In preparation for the World Cup, the company has updated its maps to include virtual tours of hub cities, such as Johannesburg and Cape Town, and added the park-and-ride facilities as points of interest.
The company was formed in 1985 and provides digital mapping information for automotive navigation systems, as well as portable and wireless devices. It has more than 4 600 staff, in 203 offices, in 45 countries. The company was bought out by Nokia in 2008.
Navteq has 30 staff members in SA working out of four offices. Its coverage of dirt roads, however, relies on a content agreement with Tracks4Africa, which updates mapping information on out-of-the-way roads through the community's involvement.
Tracks4Africa has captured 90 000km of roads in SA, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland, along with 40 000 points of interest, which includes picnic spots and wildlife watering holes.
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