TomTom offers free daily map changes on all devices

From today, TomTom is enabling all of its 60 million portable navigation devices to receive free daily map changes via the TomTom Map Share community. Map Share allows drivers to personalise the TomTom map on their own device and also share and receive map changes with the Map Share community around the world. Map Share was previously only available on a limited number of TomTom devices.

Map Share technology enables drivers to keep the TomTom map on their device up to date with immediate changes in their area. Dynamic road changes, such as changed speed limits, new street names, blocked roads and new traffic directions can be updated directly on the device. Drivers then have the choice to share those road changes with TomTom and the broader Map Share community. All TomTom customers can now download daily Map Share changes for free.

“Roads change all the time. Overnight, roads can close or traffic can be diverted, having a big impact on people’s journey times.” says Corinne Vigreux, TomTom’s Managing Director. “With Map Share, drivers can update their own map themselves straightaway. Plus, we have an active community of drivers who share around 250,000 road changes with TomTom and each other every month. We are pleased to expand our community, because the more people who use Map Share the greater the navigation experience for all our customers.”

Map Share enables people to quickly and easily report and share the most frequent road changes. More structural, long-term changes such as the addition of roads or roundabouts are validated and updated within TomTom’s maps and made available on a quarterly basis. TomTom applies a hybrid approach to map-making that includes the combination of authoritative sources, such as field collection, government data or satellite imagery, with community input to ensure its maps accurately reflect reality.

Availability
Map Share is already available for many TomTom customers. From 28 June, all TomTom Start, Via and GO customers will be able to receive free daily map changes from the TomTom Map Share Community via a simple, free software update.

A video providing an overview of TomTom’s Map Share can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6O23csHkMk

Drivers have control over which daily map changes they load onto their device. They can choose to accept changes submitted by some or many other Map Share users, or only those verified by TomTom.