After years of waiting, all of Ireland's highways and byways have been digitally mapped. Paddy Comyn reports on what's up ahead
Ireland is, apparently, on the brink of another revolution. Something that could see the end of arguments, missed appointments, frayed nerves and an outbreak of peace and tranquillity between couples in cars. Finally, Satellite Navigation systems that map the entire island have arrived.
Digital map data provider Navteq announced last month that they had extended its coverage of the Republic of Ireland's road network to include all public roads. And according to Gary Delaney, a GPS Consultant at Cork-based GPS Ireland, this will be welcome news to Ireland's business community.
A GPS system has been used by various businesses in Ireland for some time now. Glenn McDonnell from Dublin-based Taxi firm Taxi Seven has been using the system for its drivers for five years, but only to locate cars, not as a navigation aid for drivers. "Cost is the main issue. They are coming down in price but they are still too expensive for us to be supplying drivers with."
The new Navteq map, which is fully detailed, includes all public roads in the Republic and every kilometre was driven and field verified. It covers 95,369 kilometres of road, linking over 44,000 cities, towns and villages and provides turn-by-turn directions to and from addresses throughout the country.
But why has this taken so long? Well, apart from the challenge of developing an address system in Ireland, which has no post codes outside of Dublin, the real reason for the delay would appear to be down to demand. Ireland was among the last of the western European countries to get its own full system, with parts of Spain and Portugal being finished-off alongside our own. According to a Navteq spokesperson, the Chicago-based firm has concentrated on locations based on demand from its car manufacturers, so the relatively small Irish demand left us down the list.
While Ordnance Survey and An Post can provide a certain amount of information, such as line data, street names and residential buildings, the actual fieldwork carried out by companies such as Navteqprovides the really valuable information. "When you are trying to route a navigation system, knowing that you are on a road is not enough, the routing engine needs to know a lot of different criteria such as what is the speed limit of the road or what is the class of road - it is only by actually surveying the road that an accurate picture can be taken."
But just how accurate can the mapping be? Earlier this month, cars, vans and motorbikes came to grief near the village of Luckington, in Wiltshire, England, when satellite navigation systems guided traffic across a ford on the Avon, known locally as The Splash, in the hamlet of Brook End.
In the Yorkshire Dales, in a tiny hamlet called Crackpot (seriously!), satellite navigation has been directing unaware motorists on to a steep, unclassified road, impassable to normal vehicles and with a 100ft drop on one side. This was despite the presence of a "no through road" sign on the route and drivers needing to open a five-bar gate to continue.
Navteq are keen to stress that while every effort has been made to ensure that the information is as up-to-date as possible, customers are encouraged to report any problems encountered. "If anyone finds something that they think is not accurate, there is a facility on Navteq's website to tell the company what you have found," said a spokesperson for the company.
Gary Delaney takes a slightly more pragmatic stance. "I spent 20 years at sea and I was trained as a navigator in 1979 and every navigator that goes to sea or flies in an aircraft is told that common sense prevails no matter what," says Delaney.
The Automobile Association will roll out their own system later this year. It will include enhanced features such as points of interest. Membership Director Dennis Fisk told The Irish Times he hopes to have a live traffic feed system, using information gathered by their Roadwatch service "within 5 years."
This will alert drivers of accidents, road closures and suggest alternative routes. The AA navigation systems will retail from between €300 to €400. Navteq supply a large number of the major car manufacturers and also supply systems for Garmin, who are one of the main players in the portable navigation market.
Garmin will have a full Irish update by September. TeleAtlas have announced that they will have full Irish coverage by the end of the year.
So as peace descends in cars across Ireland, couples will find new things to fight about as asking for directions, could, it seems, be a thing of the past.