Differential Corrections Inc. has signed a public partnership agreement with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to provide broadcast services for the operational test of an intelligent transportation system.
Cupertino, Calif.-based DCI said it currently broadcasts differential correction data to Global Positioning System-based navigation equipment via FM subcarrier bands using the Radio Broadcast Data System standard. With RBDS, the company said it can ensure positioning accuracy as close as one meter.
DCI said it contracts with FM radio stations nationwide to “piggyback” GPS correction data on an inaudible 57 MHz subcarrier. The RBDS technology has been used for several years in Europe.
The federally funded Mn/DOT Guidestar/Trilogy Operational Test in Minnesota will use the RBDS technology in a variety of in-vehicle and portable devices to deliver route-specific traffic management channel advisories to drivers based on the current highway or weather conditions in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. DCI said the test is scheduled to begin during the second quarter of 1995 and run for two years.
Trilogy is expected to help travelers re-route past traffic incidents or plan for areas of poor road and travel conditions by providing real-time traffic information, the company said.
“We believe that the Trilogy project will successfully support Twin Cities drivers, and eventually the entire state, with real-time traffic information to make travel through the area safer, easier and far more efficient,” said Ron Haley, president of DCI.
The DCI system will digitally encode traffic information supplied from the Mn/DOT Trilogy Traffic Management Center and then broadcast the data over its network using RBDS-TMC.
According to Jeff Lange, DCI’s director of vehicle traffic services, Mn/DOT has no plans to broadcast the advisory data after the initial test phase but DCI will most likely continue with a commercial service if there is market demand.
“DCI is compensated to broadcast during the field operation test. However, there are no subscription charges to Trilogy participants during this test. For commercial services, it is DCI’s intention to charge a fee,” he said.
In related news, DCI and Robert Bosch GmbH have recently unveiled a prototype of the Blaupunkt Traveller-a combination AM/FM cassette stereo that has traffic message channel capabilities and uses digitized voice synthesis to present up-to-date traffic information to consumers.
“The increasing amount of available real-time traffic data has grown to the point where it can be difficult for drivers to quickly filter out the traffic information they need. Our goal is to present the … data in such a way that the driver can easily access only the information he or she actually needs,” DCI’s Haley said.
