Intelematics’ digital broadcast of real-time traffic conditions is live on the FM Network

Australia’s first digital broadcast of real-time traffic conditions is underway on FM 101.1 taking Suna Traffic Channel forward and underpinning a long-term agreement with a leading commercial FM broadcaster and Intelematics Australia.

The broadcast marks a significant milestone in the rollout of Suna – Intelematics’ new real-time traffic service, transmitting comprehensive road condition information to in-car navigation systems, around the clock.

The new service is being broadcast utilising an unused component of the FM spectrum to compatible navigation devices via “TMC” or Traffic Message Channel.

TMC is the international standard for delivering real-time information about road conditions to navigation systems. Motorists in Europe and North America have benefited from this technology for some time. Over 6 million motorists are already benefiting every day from TMC services with an additional 2 million joining each year.

Screen shot of the Siemens VDO unit displaying SunaTraffic on a route in Melbourne

So what does this mean?

For the very first time in Australia, Suna provides motorists with the knowledge to make decisions about their journey using the real-time information that is beamed to their navigation systems around the clock.

Intelematics has combined information from thousands of live traffic sensors, probe vehicles and with human observation of road conditions, to deliver information to navigation systems via the FM radio frequency.

Suna traffic information is encoded so that no interference is caused to the driver. It’s transmitted straight to the navigation device giving consumers an insight to their journey ahead, providing them with the ability to make changes if traffic congestion or delays are expected.

And because Suna helps motorists avoid stop-start driving, it is anticipated that vehicle emissions and noise pollution could be reduced.

Intelematics’ TMC service is compatible with most current generation navigation systems through the addition of a low-cost FM receiver. Drivers of navigation-equipped European cars in Australia may have noticed the TMC feature on their existing systems. With the addition of Suna, the value of in-built navigation systems can be extended through an improved motoring experience where consumers avoid the stress of unanticipated delays.

Intelematics’ approach is unique due to the identification of congestion levels using data derived from the traffic light control system. This data allows Intelematics to provide traffic information via the RDS-TMC traffic service to navigation devices. Suna also provides TMC as an XML feed. XML-TMC supports web and wireless based traffic services and is ideal to support traffic into navigation systems that use GPRS as the delivery channel.

Suna is the first TMC broadcast in Australia. Owing to the assistance of VicRoads in providing access to a range of traffic data the Suna TMC broadcast is firstly available for Melbourne. A national roll-out will follow.

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Drive testing SunaTraffic on Melbourne streets using the Siemens VDO navigation system and commercial FM broadcast of RDS TMC