What Is the Best GPS to Buy for New Zealand in 2013

Are you thinking about buying a new GPS Car Navigation device or application? I blogged on this topic last year and the blog proved to be incredibly popular, so its time for an update.

People still tell me that they know their way around and don’t need car navigation. Perhaps so, but they don’t know what the traffic is like on the way to their destination and real time traffic is one of the most valuable features of today’s car navigation devices.

As I write this, a storm has been forecast for most of the North Island. This means flooding, accidents and every man and his dog in Auckland has taken their car to work, which means a crawl on the motorways. Wouldn’t you like to know what roads to avoid?

AA Roadwatch

TomTom includes the data used by AA Roadwatch, which is a great resource to check before you get in your car, but doesn’t help once you are driving and a new incident occurs. What is your time worth? Where would you rather be?

Over the last week I have been trying out the new TomTom GO 600 and have been comparing it with other brands and devices that I have used as well as with Google Maps on my iPhone which a lot of people are doing these days. I have been very impressed.

Now this blog is my opinion, and it is based on years of experience working in the industry with many brands of car navigation, including OEM in-car, Portable Navigation Devices (PND’s) and mobile applications.

Works Out of the Box. Getting started with the new device was a breeze. I plugged it into my computer and within a short period of time had the account set up, the latest maps (and a $20 credit for a purchase such as one of 103 different celebrity or funny voices) and was on my way. The user interface is the easiest I have seen to date, including previous TomTom devices.

Display Size. It has a 15cm (6″)  touch screen which seems bigger than the unit that is built into my car dash. This is brilliant when it comes to data entry. My hands aren’t that big, but this does make life much easier when it comes to entering an address.

Finding Your Destination. It has never been easier. You used to have to know what suburb you were looking for, or go through menu’s to find a business. Now you just start entering data and tap the destination. It shows you how far to your destination and by default tells you where the nearest car parks are. There seem to be way less buttons and it is far more intuitive.

TomTom has come to the party with lifetime maps and lifetime real time traffic. That’s a big one for me because these devices are extremely reliable and knowing I don’t have to buy either of these again in the near future is a big plus. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but they last for years!

Up To Date Maps. Now you would think that all maps would be the same right? You would think that Google would be as up to date as anyone else right? Wrong. Having worked for a mapping company for 8 years, I know the investment that goes into keeping maps up to date and its a lot of work and expensive to maintain.

Long Bay

I tested the TomTom vs Google in new subdivisions in Auckland and Google was well out of date as you can see from the images.

This new subdivision in Long Bay is growing rapidly. The TomTom not only has all the roads that are open to the public, but also shows the new roads that will be opening in the next few weeks and months. Google only has about half of the actual roads in this location and people are moving into their new homes in the next month.

Long Bay on Google Maps

I’ve been at the end of the phone in a previous life when people rang to complain that their home or their business wasn’t on their brand new portable navigation device. Whilst many brands say they do updates ‘up to 4 times a year’, find out exactly what they updated and look for areas you might want to visit. The great thing is you can usually try a device out in the store before you buy.

TomTom Traffic. My last TomTom had a SIM Card in it and this was great until it expired and Real Time Traffic stopped working. It’s not a big deal to get it going again, but you had to pay for an update. The new TomTom ‘tethers’ to my mobile. That means that it uses my iPhone (wireless) to access the Internet (just for traffic data and it doesn’t use much at all) and it was so easy to set up! I’d never tethered a device to my iPhone before, but it was done in no time and worked first time.

TomTom uses a combination of real time traffic information from commercial GPS tracked vehicles as well as other TomTom users and is very accurate. They have been doing it around the world for a few years now and have the ability to differentiate what is normal and what isn’t. They have important data such as actual speed zones for the whole country.Some solutions decide what the speed zone might be, based on observed speeds. if we all observed the speed zones, they wouldn’t need the ‘safety camera‘ feature:)

I’ve had situations, such as with the mobile application Waze, where it warned me of slow traffic, which was in fact just normal traffic waiting at a red traffic light. TomTom also has ‘journalistic data’ which often explains why there is a problem and it offers you the choice of alternate routes while you are driving. you can preset it to automatically change to the best route or manually instruct it.

Journalistic data

Auckland Harbour Bridge Delays

Traffic isn’t just about density either. TomTom knows about planned road maintenance, it knows that the motorway north is going to close at 8PM. It knows the best way to bypass that including the impact of the people who didn’t know it was going to be closed and created extra congestion.

It shows you where on your route the delays are, what time impact they will have on your journey and how much farther the congestion goes for in distance.

Have you ever been in a queue of people wanting to get on the Auckland Harbour Bridge from Herne Bay, finding its closed and trying to work out how to get to Fanshawe Street on a cold wet winter’s night? I have. That’s when I remind myself that knowing the way isn’t all there is to navigation.

Other Features:

But wait there is more. I’m not going to go into every feature, like tap and go, pinch to zoom and a 2 hour battery life, but there are a few really important things that will make a difference for you.

• Fast Response. One of the acid-tests for car navigation is what happens when you don’t follow the instructions. I used to do this a part of my job. You get distracted and you miss the turn the nav told you to take. Then as you drove it took time trying to process that you are no longer following its instructions and you subsequently missed the next street you could have taken. Not any more, and this is another advantage of a dedicated device. It reacts almost instantly and patiently guides you back on track.
• 3D Buildings. You may not think this is important, but it can help you orient yourself in a busy urban center, and it’s cool.
• Advanced Lane Guidance. This used to be limited to motorways, but now also includes many major roads. Kiwi drivers in cities are not great about letting you in when you find yourself in the wrong lane. Getting in the right lane early can save you a lot of grief. Again, currency of maps is really important. Highways are being modified constantly. (Tip: tapping on the lane guidance screen will return it to normal nav mode if you don’t want to wait)
• IQ Routes. With masses of people sharing their driving information with TomTom, it uses intelligence to learn from their behavior. If most people ignore the instructions of the GPS because they have local knowledge, there is probably a reason for it and this data gets added to the equation. That’s pretty smart.

Summary

I love the TomTom GO 600. I still believe that a separate device (especially with the big screen ) is the best way to go. It is designed for a purpose and leaves your phone to do the other things it was designed to do. I love the way it uses my phone for real time traffic so I don’t have to worry about the service expiring.

TomTom does have apps for iPhone and Android devices and they do work on the basis that you download all the maps and software onto your device so you don’t have to pay to download map data as you drive. They have nice features including muting your music to hear the instructions, navigation to your contacts (Navman used to do that on my Palm) integration with your calendar and your social media including Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and even SMS functionality. I might do another blog on that at some stage. One important difference is the GPS antenna. The GPS on your dedicated nav device is far more accurate and this can be important, as I mentioned previously, on a busy road when you miss the turn you wanted.

Whilst Google has some good new features and is ‘free’, it still uses a lot of mobile data and that costs money forever unless you work for a telco. Don’t take my word for it. Use a data usage application on your mobile before you start a journey and check it when you finish. Multiply that mobile data cost over the number of times you might use navigation over a year and you may find buying a dedicated device is cheaper. I know you can cache Google data to your mobile now, but I’m not convinced it is a better choice. Then of course there is information such as local speed zones and currency of maps.

I still use Google when I’m walking and using public transport locally and overseas.

When you compare car nav devices, don’t make the mistake that some reviewers make and test in urban centers where things don’t change much. Test it in areas where there are new motorway extensions, new suburbs, changes to intersections. Urban centers don’t change much, although Wellington turned some of its 1-way streets in the opposite direction and of course there were the Christchurch earthquakes which changed everything!

As I said, this is my opinion based on many years of professional experience. I welcome feedback and your comments on your experiences.

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How to Get an Honest Fare From a Cab Driver

There is an international conspiracy. I’ve said it before. They get all the people who want to be taxi drivers, to a secret location, indoctrinate them in how to milk a fare and then send them to countries they haven’t been to before and where hey don’t speak the local language. 

This morning I read a blog on Freakonomics, entitled Why Don’t More Professional Drivers Use Traffic-Enabled GPS?. It’s obvious isn’t it? They want to get the biggest fare out of you that they can.

One way to get an honest fare out of a cab driver is to agree on it in advance. That’s easy if you know what it is worth.

Airports

Airports are a prime opportunity and I’ve been ripped off in more countries than I can remember at airports. In New Zealand there is a great service called Air New Zealand Taxis. You can select from 14 airports, enter details like your start or end address, what flights you are taking and then select from a variety of taxi types. I note they even offer helicopter now, but I don’t think that’s an option for the budget conscious.

So you choose which mode of taxi you want and they guarantee to get you to the airport on time. You pay in advance and they even monitor the flight arrivals and departures so if your flight arrives a couple of hours late, your taxi driver will still be waiting for you holding up one of those cool board with your name on it.

If they make a mistake, as one did with me last year and overshoot your freeway exit and have to take a 15 km detour, it’s their problem, and doesn’t decrease the thickness of the lump in your back pocket (if you still carry folding).

Back to traffic. I have been a TomTom Go Live product user since they launched in New Zealand and Australia and it is awesome! It is good because they have good data derived from a combination of fleet managed vehicles (large numbers of them) and data from TomTom users. The GPS Car Nav PND’s have a SIM Card in them and get their data in real time (within seconds despite coming via Berlin). What makes it really powerful is the algorithms in the background that know how to interpret data.

I have been involved in car nav and the development of real time traffic in NZ and Australia and have worked with several brands of car nav. I have seen good systems and not so good systems. Now I must admit that my current TomTom is a little dated, but it has the latest map data. It’s probably time for me to do some testing of the latest devices and apps from various brands, but if you are wanting to know what the best device is for you, this blog is still worth a read.

Like a lot of guys, I believe I have a great sense of direction. However, I have learned that the GPS car nav is better at it than I am. It looks at all the possible ways I can go and pretty much every time I thought it was wrong, it was me that was wrong. It also keeps evaluating, when it has real time traffic. Often while I am driving, my TomTom tells me that I am still on the fastest route, or that there has been an incident and there is now an alternative route which will save me (x) minutes. I now trust it.

That doesn’t mean I trust all real time traffic apps. I have tested other apps in the past which interpreted normal rush hour traffic as an incident and led me to take a longer route which was unnecessary. There have also been times when I knew where I was going and didn’t bother using my TomTom with real time traffic to disastrous results,

So back to keeping the cabbie honest. The easiest answer is to take your trusted car nav application with you and tell the driver where you want him to go. Remember, you are the customer. If he isn’t happy with that, grab his taxi number, get out and find another one who is more trustworthy.

So, how about it? Tell me your taxi stories. I’m keen on the good, the bad and the ugly. Please share a comment. What real time traffic navigation  products have you used? How did you find them?

Census 2013 So What Did You Think?

Our household did it online and I have to say it was a smooth and easy process. The questions we didn’t have to answer were grayed out and we were all done and dusted in no time. Hopefully this means that finally we can hold referendums and vote online in future.

However, to me it was a major missed opportunity to learn more about who Kiwis are, what they do and where. This seemed to be to be simply a modern version of the feudal system where nobility tried to establish how much tax they could claim from their citizens. I love the Census system, always used to use copies of the books the Statistics Department used to put out and have been a keen user of the tables and tool builders on the website over more recent years. This Big Data has a huge impact on where to do business, where to build shops and factories, schools etc and the potential to not require costly double ups of data collection as will remain necessary for many Government organisations.

Here are a few thoughts from me of things that I would have liked to know and would have been easy to include and a few comments on what was included:

Ethnicity. For a country that is so multi-ethnic there were only 8 ethnicities offered and one of them was New Zealand European. That effectively makes it a political question and one that does not allow qualitative or quantitative research. As anyone who has studied statistics knows, most European Caucasians will  select the first option, leaving us with skewed data. How about culture. I know people who will register as Chinese because they look like their ancestors, but were born and raised in New Zealand and in most things they do other than appearance are indistinguishable from any other NZ born person. On the other hand there are people who totally live the culture of their family and do not integrate much with our everyday society.

The question on what languages you can have a conversation in, was easy for people who really don’t speak English, to say they do. This to me is important because we know there are now large numbers of people who will struggle to answer a question like “where is the nearest dairy?” in English.

What is your religion? This to me is very old school. You either belong to a sect or you have no religion. What if you are agnostic, spiritual but don’t belong to a particular church? This would effectively assume that if you have no religion, you do not believe in a higher spirit, God if you will.

I would have liked to know what people’s jobs are. As a futurist, I’m aware that many of today’s roles or job titles didn’t exist 20 years ago and it would be very interesting to be able to identify shifts in trends in employment. Yes, this information is available to IRD, but I want to know these answers and you could argue the same about the table which asks about personal annual income.

The employment questions also didn’t support all options. For example, I am a founder in a couple of start-ups. I am not an employee and I do not draw any money from the companies. I work very long hours in them. But I couldn’t answer the how many hours do you work in your job, because I’m not employed by the companies. These are not family businesses or family farms, although we do have a project creating virtual pets. Because I don’t have a ‘job’ all the options below these questions were grayed out. I was left with the questions of did I apply for a job and if so, how. BTW I also do not get any sort of benefit from the Government.

The only questions on health focused on disabilities that stop you from earning money or require a benefit. Wouldn’t it have been interesting to get more information on conditions such as asthma, diabetes, ADHD, Autism, Cancer etc. where people continue to work or study. Not so much from a single point in time but from a trend perspective. Tie this into geospatial mesh blocks and area units and some very interesting information might have emerged. What about depression and mental health? If we were able to see statistics based on location, what discoveries might that lead to? Perhaps ones that Government doesn’t want to reveal?

They asked how many cars were available to the household, not how old they were, how often they were used, how big the engines were, whether they were NZ new? Yes, again I know this information is collected by other Government agencies, but it is not made available to the public and business in the same way.

Question 32 would have appealed to teachers. In the last 7 days did you work for pay, profit or income for an hour or more. Novopay anyone? How many people worked but haven’t been paid? Many have waited much more than a week, I’ve heard of people who still have pay overdue for months! (No I am not a teacher).

What else would I like to know?

• Do you have a land-line (that has dial tone)? Because in the event of power outages like earthquakes, they often still work.
• Do you have a broadband connection? VOIP?
• How many computers do you have at home that can access the internet?
• How many mobiles do you have in the household that are connected? How many of those are Smartphones?
• How many hours a week do you spend: Playing Sport or other outdoor activities? In club or organised activities? Watching TV? Playing computer games? On social media?
• Do you BYOD to work and use it for work purposes?
• How often do you buy fast food or eat out?
• What about savings? What do people do with their money? Are they part of a super scheme like Kiwi Saver? Do they buy stocks (Mighty River Power would like to know)? What was the last big purchase in the last 12 months?
• How about leisure, do they go away for a holiday? In NZ or overseas? Can they afford one at all? How long for?

There are many more questions that could have been asked like, how easy was it to complete this online? Would you be happy to vote in the next elections online?

So in summing up, its great to finally have a Census again and I’m looking forward to finding out what has changed in New Zealand, particularly as a result of the Canterbury earthquakes, but also information like how many NZ born people have left the country permanently, what is the make up of this country today compared to the last Census.

Congratulations on what appeared to be a smooth online operation, but what a missed opportunity to get some more learning. I think there has been so much focus on finally getting the job done, that there was insufficient focus on getting some highly important and valuable new data. The world has changed so much in 5 years. It appears like Novopay, that not much else has when it comes to taking advantage of 21st Century technology.

What do you think?

What is the best GPS to buy for New Zealand?

Thanks for finding this blog. It has been very popular and as a consequence, I have posted an update at the end of September 2013. You can find it here.

If I had a dollar for each time I get asked this question I would be able to retire. I have blogged about this before, but it is certainly time for an update, particularly with some of the stories I’ve seen in the media recently, which have either been advertorial or blaming GPS for sending people off the road.

Some people see car navigation as a cool toy, or think that they are all pretty much the same. Instead think about what you need it for. Going skiing? Picking up the kids from somewhere you haven’t been before on a wet, dark winters evening? Trying to get to an important business meeting on time, finding your hotel or the nearest ATM? Are you a geek, or do you need something that is basic and easy to use?

Soon your GPS will be able to find you a free car park

Car navigation today offers a myriad of options from mobile smartphone applications through PND (Portable Navigation Devices) to in-car devices that are factory installed. The most important things to look at are the currency and accuracy of the map data and points of interest information. It doesn’t matter how cool it is if the information is inaccurate or out of date.

NZ Automobile Association subsidiary GeoSmart has a NZ based team driving and updating maps full-time with 4 major updates every year for a number of  car navigation brands, and maps roads to sub .5 meter accuracy. Have you ever been told to go to the nearest road when you are on it? This includes important things like having accurate speed zones to warn you when you are over the speed limit, school zones, current Points of Interest and safety cameras.

Traffic congestion is here to stay and it’s not just in the cities. Real time traffic is a powerful navigation tool to find alternate routes when available and with brands such as TomTom offering HD Traffic in connected devices (PND, iPhone and iPad, and in-car systems), real-time traffic is available throughout all of New Zealand where you can receive  a mobile phone signal.

Whilst traffic is a major urban problem, this winter has already seen hundreds of road closures due to slips, accidents, flooding and more, most of them outside the major cities. Many people don’t think outside of the city until they get stuck.

When there is a weather bomb the AA Roadwatch website can have up to 100,000 page views in a day and that’s before people even get in their cars. Some brands and devices only offer traffic information via RDS-TMC broadcast radio in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, which has limited capacity for the amount of information it can send due to bandwidth restrictions and of course if you are driving outside of those cities, it can’t help you.

This technology was launched in NZ by GeoSmart back in 2006, but now they can stream live traffic and congestion data every two minutes across all of NZ via a mobile network, this  means that you are fully informed of the road conditions for some 97% of the road network of NZ.

When people ask what is the best GPS, there is no correct answer. There are many great products and it comes down to when and where you want to use them and what information matters to you.

They start with ‘free’ products on Smartphones. These may provide routing, but are unlikely to have information such as speed zones, lane guidance, turn restrictions or have the latest map data. They generally don’t have the maps loaded into the phone which means that every single map image and set of instructions has to be downloaded as you go and this can add up to a significant cost on your mobile data account. Recent research in Europe has shown that often adding the data costs result in ‘free’ being much more expensive than buying an app or a device where the maps are stored locally.

There are paid apps for Smartphones and tablets including products such as Metroview NZ City Maps which gives you one NZ city or region for $9.95 with full car navigation and the maps on your device, to TomTom which offers effectively the same experience as you would get on a TomTom device, even with real-time traffic, funny voices and even social media location-based apps. Obviously a benefit of a mobile app is that your mobile is always with you and you don’t need to have multiple devices.

There has been a price war in recent times with portable devices and you can purchase devices from as little as $100. Keep in mind that generally you get what you pay for. To put a device out at really cheap prices, something has to be sacrificed. Some products state that they will give you “up to”  4 map updates a year (which could mean just one) where others will “guarantee” 4 map updates per year.  Are they up to date with changes such as speed zones, new roads, State Highway realignment, the Auckland SH1 tunnel and viaduct switch, new suburbs and subdivisions?

On the matter of updates, how do you get them? How easy are they to install?

Try the device in-store with roads you know have changed.  Entry level doesn’t have to mean inferior but it pays to understand what you need from it. We are also starting to see larger screens on portable devices up to 6 inches, which is great for trucks or people with poor eyesight.

The future of car navigation is a connected device, whether it is a mobile smartphone, a PND that contains a SIM card and is always connected, with the ability to do location-based search, social media and location-based check-ins and look for live car park availability, entertainment and events, or a device that comes factory fitted in your car, also has a SIM card and has the ability to tell emergency services that you have had an air bag deployment and can provide your location.

This market is evolving all the time. Next time you look at buying a nav unit or application, think about the last time you needed help. Were you in a hurry? Did you get stuck in traffic? Do you travel outside of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch? Think about an area that you know has changed recently, for example the Victoria Park Viaduct over-bridges southbound or the tunnel going north. When the Wellington Street on-ramp is open again onto the Northern Motorway, would you like to know about it? Have you arrived at a motorway on-ramp only to find it is closed for maintenance? How did you feel? Did it matter? Did you know how to get to another ramp that was open?

GPS units aren’t all equal. Try a unit before you buy. Don’t just read what it says on the packaging (or at least read the fine print carefully), ask someone who has one if they would buy the same product again. It’s not just about the money, it’s about the freedom to go wherever you want via the best route at that specific point in time, to be able to relax and enjoy a stress free journey.

Do you have a car nav story? Did it help you on a trip? Are you happy with your purchase?

They drive on the wrong side of the road

This is a follow on from my blogs on preparing for a USA Road Trip, but it is equally relevant to anyone going to another country and especially where they drive on the opposite side of the road to what you are used to.

It is very easy when you relax into your trip and get up in the morning, to accidentally start driving on the wrong side of the road and many people even in New Zealand have had accidents and even died by losing concentration and automatically driving on the wrong side of the road because they have been doing it for years at home.

The thing that struck me on my first driving experience in the USA was that the traffic lights are often in the middle of the intersection. In New Zealand they are before the intersection, so I almost stopped in the middle of the road.

One of the things on the top of my preparation list was learn the key elements of the US Road Rules. I had my navigation but it wasn’t going to tell me who had right of way. The rules work really well for you once you understand them.

One that was really interesting is 4-way intersections and we found loads of those. The rule is whoever gets there first has right of way, so you really have to pay attention when you get to them.

Another rule that works really well is that you can turn right at a red light if the way is clear, unless there is a sign saying you can’t at that particular intersection. Make sure you come to a complete stop first, I’m told police are often hiding waiting for people to drive straight through.

A rule that I thought was really good on the Interstates was that if a car was broken down on the side of the road, you have to change lanes to give them space.

Whichever country you go to, its worth spending half an hour to make sure you know the basic road rules. Relax and enjoy but don’t relax too much. I was driving onto a major intersection a couple of weeks ago and the nav said turn sharp left, so I did and found myself facing a one way highway full of traffic coming straight at me. I managed to back out safely, but it reminded me of the importance of staying alert at all times. Having said that, I really enjoyed the road trip and the little bit of preparation beforehand made a big difference.

What Do You Hate About Car Parks?

I recently asked you what you liked about car parks. I guess based on 25 votes and 3 comments, most of you don’t really think about this subject, which is fine. I appreciate your feedback.

So lets look at the negative side of car parking. What do you dislike about car parks? I can think of lots of things and maybe I can start you off with a few things to think about and I will also add another poll.

I went down to the new Wynyard Quarter a couple of weeks ago on a sunny Saturday for lunch. We thought we’d have a look at this new development, have lunch and enjoy the new showcase area in Auckland. We drove the 30km from our home, drove through all the car parks, couldn’t find a single park (this was around noon) and after 20 minutes of crawling in circles went to Takapuna for lunch. I hate going somewhere and not being able to get a park.

I hate not being able to find a suitable car park close to my destination when its raining. We’ve had more than our fair share of that this winter in New Zealand.

I hate car parks with small parking spaces and large pillars, which going by the black and other colour scrapings on them, do more than their fair share of damage.

Car parks with small spaces means that often motorists overlap into the park next to them, so that that the vacant park is rendered useless to anything other than a Beetle or a motorcycle.

I hate car parks where the machines only take cash and I very rarely carry cash any more.

I hated having my car broken into in a public car park and finding that the only video security available was there to stop people leaving the car park without paying! I haven’t used that particular car park since. I either walk further or go to a more expensive one in that area.

I hate car parks where the machine doesn’t work and all the staff seem to have gone on a break.

I hate parks that cost more than the activity I want to consume.

So how about leaving a comment and participating in the poll, you can even create a new question in it yourself. I am going to be presenting to the Parking Association later this year at their annual conference and want to give them an idea, positive and negative about their business. This includes curb side parking by the way. Any car parking dislikes at all.

I haven’t forgotten special needs car parks, but I want you to tell me about your experiences:)

As a footnote, this is not a bitch session. We are a motoring people and we need car parks. I am looking for feedback with a view to coming up with ideas as to how to make car parking more user friendly and attractive. I believe that there are many improvements possible and many opportunities for car parks to engage with their users and their community.

How far away is Peak Oil and what is it?

Lately there has been renewed interest in Peak Oil and while we are talking about Emissions Trading and allowing larger trucks on New Zealand Roads, the fact is that oil is running out.

What is peak oil? Wikipedia has an extended description, but in simple terms it is when the amount of oil being extracted is at the highest rate and from then on, the amount of oil becomes terminal. In other words, the amount of oil being extracted from the earth will be less than is being consumed, while demand, along with population, increases.

The Space Collaborative paints a scary picture of what the near future could look like without oil. Of course oil doesn’t just drive our cars, our ships, our planes, but it also helps to generate electricity.

Now of course for New Zealand it’s not a big deal because we have geothermal power and arrangements with countries like Japan to access oil, when it starts running out. Major gas guzzlers like the USA will gladly give us a share of their emergency stocks because we’re nice people.  We shouldn’t forget that we have more vehicles in New Zealand than we have licensed drivers.  Of course the price will sky rocket and you will need to be very wealthy to be able to run your car. Just as well we have natural gas.

It was interesting to read that Australia voted in November, not to put together a plan for peak oil, so we probably won’t find any help there.  New Zealand has been working on plans for a number of years, because in 2003 we were dependant on oil for 48% of our energy production. This means that brown outs as predicted in the diagram above, within the next 20 years could become a reality. Yet besides emissions trading, the Kyoto Protocol, which as I have blogged about before will require that instead of spending money to protect our own infrastructure will have us sending money to other countries who have lots of trees.

I don’t think we’re talking about science fiction here, where it will be a problem for future generations, long after we have turned to dust. I think this will be a problem that anyone reading this blog will face. So what are you going to do when you can’t get petrol or diesel for your car and there isn’t enough oil to generate electricity or even make candles?

It bears thinking about doesn’t it?

New Zealand gets TomTom Car Navigation on iPhone first!

OK, we were only ahead of Australia by a couple of hours, but we need everything we can get. Maybe we should give some iPhones to the All Blacks to help them find the try line in the TriNations and Bledisloe on Saturday, but that’s another story. As another aside, when I wrote TriNations, my spell checker suggested ‘urinations’. We’ll let that one be too.

So this morning I got a phone call letting me know that TomTom Car Navigation is now available with GeoSmart maps, for New Zealand in the iTunes Apps Store. This is awesome news. We’ve had some routing applications available in New Zealand, but nothing with any real accuracy. Also the other apps required that you download data frequently, which means additional cost to your Telco, whereas the iPhone application has all of the maps and Points of Interest you need on the device.

The application requires OS3.0 but as I understand it, as long as you have the OS version, you can run the application on any iPhone as well as iPod Touch if you purchase the TomTom Car Kit. Neither helps me as I only have an iPod Classic and a Blackberry, but I hope to remedy that situation soon.

The car kit itself seems very cool and I hope to get the chance to try one. The car kit includes the new TomTom mount, which I really like. It also incorporates a speaker and a microphone as well as an external GPS antenna which means that you don’t have to buy the very latest iPhone with GPS and Compass (although that would be my pick right now) if you already have an iPhone or iPod Touch. The car kit also charges the iPhone when it is in the cradle.

Now the debate has begun in earnest. Why buy the iPhone App and Car Kit, when for the same price you can buy a dedicated PND (Portable Navigation Device) for the same price or maybe even less? This is a similar question to the one I get frequently, which is, what navigation unit or brand is the best? My answer is that ‘best’ is subjective. Different brands and different models currently have different features and the feature set is part of the argument that defines what is best for you.

TomTom and Navman both have new product ranges and different features relating to the user interface, functionality etc. Both brands in New Zealand have GeoSmart Maps (and if you don’t know by now, I work for GeoSmart) which are the most accurate for New Zealand. Why is not relevant for today’s blog. For example Navman now has AA Traffic and TomTom has IQ Routes (which are not the same concept, just an example).

Perhaps part of the answer is how often you travel. As I’ve said in previous blogs. your mobile is your ubiquitous device. You always have it with you. I always have car navigation in my car, but if I’m out of town (without my car) I don’t always take it with me.

The TomTom iPhone Car Kit solves another problem because you can use it as a hands free kit for your mobile. From 1 November, driving and talking on a handheld mobile will become illegal. You will either have to use a hands free kit of some sort or not use your phone at all in the car. I have stopped accepting or making any calls in the car, although I might accept important calls if I had a hands free kit. There is always a tension and anxiety around not answering calls on your mobile. People expect to be able to reach you, which causes an unpleasant feeling for both parties. So here’s a nice solution for your car.

So back to the application, this is essentially the same application as the one residing on the normal PND devices carried by your favourite consumer electronics stores. One cute thing is that on iPhone you can orient your phone to landscape or portrait and it will automatically adapt itself.

The nature of car navigation is changing and like most new technologies it is becoming increasingly difficult to predict what will happen in the near future. LBS on mobile is a given and if you search through my blogs, you will find several about mobile applications, car navigation on mobile will become common place and of course there are many situations where you would like guidance while walking, exercising, travelling in a taxi or on public transport. These are often scenarios where you want to travel light, but wouldn’t go without your mobile.

If you had asked me last year, where car navigation is going, I would have told you about ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), for which R&D has been funded by the European Governments. This was to develop systems that would reduce accidents in a number of ways, including monitoring vehicles positions in relation to the lane markings on roads, legal driving speeds, speed and distance of vehicles in front and behind you and much more. Many of the innovations for this are being developed and in some cases launched by brands as far apart as BMW and Nissan.

This system was originally going to be made mandatory in all new cars sold in Europe from 2012 and if this was still the case, it could have meant significantly reduced demand for PND’s. When I was in The Netherlands earlier this year, I was advised that the date had been dropped and the European Union were having a rethink on the subject, and particularly their ongoing commitment to funding it. They determined that it would take more than 10 years before the majority of vehicles in Europe would have this system in place and therefore the deadline wouldn’t have any immediate impact. A cynic would say that this would mean that current politicians would not get any credit within their career to justify spending time on it.

So now we have (I reiterate I haven’t tried it yet) a new system which will provide an all but identical experience to a PND on your iPhone. Of course TomTom isn’t the only mobile product available, but it is the first one being commercially sold in New Zealand. The new Android phones also have GPS and Compass and of course there are some very good Windows Mobile applications as well such as iGO8. Will there be a move away from PND’s? I doubt it, at least in the near future. Navman will certainly be hoping not.

There will be a camp that says a PND is the best device at being a PND. They said the same about PDA’s, but SmartPhones are now viable devices, even though I still have to reboot my new Blackberry Bold at least a couple of times a week. The future is going to be interesting. There are phone companies such as Nokia who showed their intention by purchasing Navteq and are planning converged devices that combine a mobile with car navigation. There are PND manufacturers who are going to be putting SIM Card slots into their car navigation devices.

The market will decide what the best is and the answer to all questions will be yes:)

I’ll leave the last word for today to TomTom.

Northern Motorway Truck Crash

Was I lucky or what! I drove through the Northern Motorway into Auckland City on my way to the airport around 6:30 AM. The first I heard about the crash was reading a NZStuff story on Twitter after I finished my presentation to the Intergraph Forum in Christchurch.

It’s interesting in this day and age how few people know about some of the information resources available to them. I probably knew about it before a lot of Aucklanders did, at least the ones that weren’t already stuck in the chaos. NZStuff has a great info page on Twitter. They do repeat their ‘Tweets’ a bit too often for my liking, but I guess that’s how people find out about their service and so far they only have 75 people following their free service. Crazy. It’s a great way of catching the headlines. I catch the Tweets on my Blackberry and can click on the links for the rest of the story.

People aren’t yet used to going on the web to check out traffic information. The last time I was in the Netherlands, we used to check the traffic site on the net to see if there were any problems we need to detour around. The site is pretty old fashioned in it’s mapping technology, nothing like the web mapping on the AA Maps website.

You might well find it worth checking that site in future before heading into the traffic. If you had done that this morning if you left after 9 AM you would have known not to go into the city via the Northern Motorway and if you check it now you will see that after 8PM tonight they are going to close it again to finish the job that the truck driver did crashing into the overbridge this morning. I’m glad I managed to get on an earlier flight!