Digital Map provider NAVTEQ announced this week an agreement with Autoroutes Trafic, a partnership of nine French motorway operators, for French traffic data that is intended to become “a key component of NAVTEQ Traffic’s real-time traffic offering in France”. NAVTEQ Traffic is expected to be available in H1 2009 in France.

With this contract NAVTEQ is further developing its European traffic information system following the acquisition of T-Systems Traffic (in January 2009) and a partnership with Telefonica in Spain.

Autoroutes Trafic
Autoroutes Trafic, formed in 2003, is a unique source of proprietary traffic data on more than 8,000 kilometers of French motorways and broadly licenses its data to service providers in France to disseminate this information to the general public and to commercialize the content. This traffic data includes fFlow data (from fixed sensors installed on motorways and within public road networks in urban areas) as well as incident data (which is provided exclusively by the motorway operators’ patrol and safety services organizations).

NAVTEQ will combine this French sensor and incident data with GPS probe (GPS-enabled commercial and consumer devices) and some additional sources.