Citroën’s In-Vehicle Navigation System utilises NAVTEQ's recently released full coverage map of Australia

Chicago, USA, 26 February 2007 – NAVTEQ, a provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions, has been selected by Citroën to be the first Australian in-vehicle navigation customer to leverage NAVTEQ’s recent release of its full coverage map of Australia.

NAVTEQ’s map of Australia is fully navigable, enabling door-to-door route calculations and turn-by-turn route guidance. Citroën is a market leader in European navigation and telematics systems and the selection of NAVTEQ’s map for the Australia market is a clear indication of Citroën’s demand for a quality product. The agreement provides that NAVTEQ map data will be available with Magneti Marelli factory-fitted satellite navigation system in the 2007 Citroën C4, C5, and C6 models.

The Citroën models offering the Magneti Marelli navigation system will feature radio, CD player, MP3, GSM dual band telephone, Voice Recognition, Text to speech, RDS-TMC, WAP Connection, CD-changer management services.

The map offers detailed road network information, including a collection of over 200 attributes such as one-way streets and turn restrictions, enabling Citroën’s navigation systems to provide reliable and efficient routing.

In building its map of Australia NAVTEQ licensed data from multiple established sources, including government mapping data under license from PSMA Australia Limited, to develop a high quality base map, then verified and expanded upon that data by sending NAVTEQ teams into the field.

Over 45 geographic analysts drove more than 227,000 kilometers and collected approximately 63,000 additional points of interest, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, shops, stadiums, hospitals, police stations, banks and concert halls to ensure the map met NAVTEQ’s standards and would further enhance the navigation experience.

“Demand for navigation systems continues to grow globally,” said Rich Schuman, Senior Vice President, NAVTEQ Asia Pacific Sales. “As consumer awareness grows and consumers gain more experience with navigation systems, car companies are recognizing the value of making this feature more broadly available.”

Citroën has seen ten successive years of sales growth in Australia and its position in the industry is also a promising sign there will be a strong demand for Australian market Citroëns fitted with the NAVTEQ map.

“Citroën is world renowned, a technical innovator not just in telematics, but across the automotive spectrum,” says Milles Williams, General Manager for Citroën in Australia. “With Citroën’s telematic hardware already a technical benchmark in Europe, we needed a mapping system for Australia that is of the same standard and which could fully utilize all the features of the Citroën technology. NAVTEQ has met all these targets and we are hopeful their mapping data will boost take-up of this technology in Citroëns sold in Australia.”

Citroën has been selling cars in Australia continuously for a longer period of time than any other car maker and it holds a place in the Australia history books with a Citroën being the first ever car to drive right around the coast of Australia.

Source : http://www.navteq.com