Tele Atlas North America Maps Rated Highest for Quality and Reliability

Certified Tests Show GPS devices with Tele Atlas maps win for address availability, routing and destination accuracy

Lebanon, NH, Tele Atlas, a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location-based solutions, today revealed results of tests that show Tele Atlas maps of the United States, Canada and Mexico rate highest in terms of quality and reliability, and in certain markets are up to 10% more accurate than competing maps. Tele Atlas quality testing uses a process certified by the TÜV SÜD, a leading global testing and inspection organization with 14,000 experts providing consulting, testing, certification and training services at more than 600 locations in Europe, North America and Asia.

Road tests were conducted in the last year in randomly selected markets, covering 50 routes and 300 miles in each market and using the latest commercially available GPS devices from two leading brands. Tests based on the processes certified by the TÜV SÜD focused on the three questions that determine map accuracy:

• Destination availability; can users find any address or point of interest (POI) they want in the system?

• Routing calculation and guidance; are users routed to their destination without problems?

• Destination accuracy; do users arrive at the door of the exact address or POI selected?


The results are that Tele Atlas maps are rated highest because they have the most addresses and POIs and the most accurate routes, helping drivers save time and money. In the United States, Tele Atlas maps won in two-thirds of tested markets. In Canada and Mexico, Tele Atlas maps were more accurate in every tested market.

“Whether you are driving your daily commute, running a local search on your mobile device or routing an emergency vehicle to a critical site, map quality remains fundamental to ensuring these applications perform reliably,” said Thomas Gilligan, Senior Director of Quality, Tele Atlas. “We began working with the TÜV SÜD last year to ensure our testing processes meet the high expectations of our industry customers and their end users. We are pleased that our results for North America continue to reinforce the excellent benchmarks Tele Atlas established in past map accuracy tests.”

TÜV SÜD’s audit of the Tele Atlas test methodology included an evaluation of the company’s processes for gathering, sampling and validating data. Tele Atlas’ tests are designed to adhere to the certified processes and to assess overall performance of a map database from the user’s perspective. The same test methods have been incorporated by many of the world’s leading car manufacturers.

“TÜV SÜD audited and certified Tele Atlas’ procedures for testing its map database to ensure that the quality processes implemented meet consumers’ expectations for high quality and reliability. We remain impressed with the company’s dedication to quality assurance,” said Martin Grzebellus, Managing Director, NavCert, part of the TÜV SÜD group.



Tele Atlas maps in North America delivers navigable cover for more than 7.4 million miles and include more than 12.1 million points of interest (POIs). To update its maps, Tele Atlas captures and verifies changes from thousands of global sources, ranging from government documents and public safety officials to construction companies and truck drivers, as well as satellite and aerial imagery. The company is also the first to use contributions from tens of millions of individual drivers. This community input is backed by stringent review and validation processes and further enables Tele Atlas to create fresh maps and deliver a better experience for end users of its maps.

About Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that power many of the world’s most essential navigation and location-based services (LBS). Through a combination of its own products and partnerships, Tele Atlas offers map coverage of more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The company was founded in 1984 and has offices in 27 countries around the world. Today, Tele Atlas maps are developed with the insight of a community of millions of GPS system users worldwide, who are adding to the company’s unmatched network of sources to track and validate changes in real time, and deliver the best digital maps and dynamic content. For more information, visit www.teleatlas.com or http://investors.tomtom.com/index.cfm. Tele Atlas is a subsidiary of TomTom N.V. (AEX: TOM2).