April/May 2002

Sidewinder in real-time routing development

A real-time route-finding system drawing on live traffic information services is to be launched into the UK transport fleet market through a joint venture involving British-based scheduling and fleet planning specialist Sidewinder and Webraska, a French-based multinational telematics group.

It will allow drivers to plan routes to take account of traffic holdups, and fleet managers to re-plan schedules for individual vehicles dynamically, taking account of delays encountered on the road or likely to arise later in the journey. Traffic data feeds will be provided by organisations such as ITIS.

 

Sidewinder, a specialist in high-end scheduling, booking and tracking systems, sees the service as extending its offering into the mobile computing arena. For Webraska it opens opportunities to expand further into the fleet market.

The two companies have already cooperated in the US in the development of IbDN Fleet, a low-cost end-to-end fleet management system that takes account of traffic congestion. This is based on Webraska's IbDN-Lite navigation solution for Pocket PC devices, which has been integrated with Sidewinder's Non-Stop Optimisation product range. The new UK system is a further development of this.

IbDN stands for Internet-based Distributed Navigation, and refers to Webraska's key technology differentiator ­ the ability to store digital mapping and data resources centrally, and deliver routing instructions to drivers complete with maps via GSM or GPRS mobile phone technology. The company maintains that this is more flexible than established in-vehicle navigation products relying on maps held locally on CD-ROMs.

Sidewinder has been working on various versions ranging from a WAP phone implementation to a full PDA graphical version. Users will be able to check pre-planned routes against real-life traffic conditions, or download a complete itinerary before they start, optimised for fastest journey time rather than distance. Download time for a complex 100-mile journey is said to be no more than 20 seconds.

Sidewinder was created last year in a buyout from Mobile Information Systems. It has bases in the US, the UK and Australia, but has now consolidated its world headquarters in Britain. European sales director Guy Barbor told m.logistics the full UK launch of the system was due as soon as the full PDA version was ready.

Webraska has its main bases in France and the US, and has worked with many leading mobile phone and communications technology companies throughout the world in developing consumer-oriented location-based services and telematics solutions.

Last year it gained a European patent on its IbDN system, and it has just been selected by Dutch telecoms giant KPN to implement its SmartZone services on the i-mode multimedia platform, which KPN is rolling out in association with NTT DoCoMo in Japan.