European Perspective on Telematics: Facing New Challenges and Opportunities

The telematics industry in Europe continues to be shaped and defined by the availability and advancement of numerous technologies, combined with the move toward compatible, open architectures and communications protocols. New issues relative to the human machine interface play an increasing role in forging new telematics products requiring the proper mix of safety and ease of use for cockpit controls. A revolution is now underway in the European telematics market that promises to achieve effective telematics cockpit controls that take into account the special requirements of driving a vehicle. The manner in which telematics information is presented to the driver is as critical to the successful implementation and deployment of telematics products as the telematics services themselves. Also enabling this revolution and shaping the European telematics service provider business model will be the ongoing movement of vehicle data processing to powerful off-board servers that expand the menu of services available to the telematics subscriber.