LONG BRANCH, N.J.�TheHereHD Traffic service will be available in greater Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, with expansion expected to additional areas of the country.
Building on its existing connected traffic and RDS-TMC coverage in Canada, Here has worked with Honda and the Broadcaster Traffic Consortium to provide the first HD Traffic service in Canada. Canadian drivers will be able to receive localized traffic updates, weather forecasts and even fuel prices, through HD Radio technology.
HD Radio technology was created by the iBiquity Digital Corp. (now DTS) to transmit digital radio signals over the FM band. The BTC, comprised of 22 radio organizations across the US and Canada, broadcasts local traffic and other map-related data via FM and HD Radio technology.
As new distribution channels have grown, the benefits to drivers expand as well. �HD has more bandwidth than traditional RDS-TMC reporting, so we can deliver rich, detailed real-time traffic updates for highways and arterial roads, as well as fuel prices and weather information,� explained Carrie Cox, Senior Product Marketing manager for Here.
Here updates its traffic information every 60 seconds from a broad range of sources, including billions of anonymized speed probes taken from cars and mobile devices. �These sources come from drivers operating in markets around the world with different technologies and so HERE�s Traffic Services are available in a wide variety of formats and distribution options, including DAB+, RDS, HD Radio, connected APIs and TPEG.HERE has a large, dedicated team that validates the traffic information sources, and maintains rigorous testing processes to ensure quality is embedded at every stage of the process.
