The present paper aims at the description of state-of-the-art technologies and principles of dynamic vehicle navigation and their application in commercial areas like truck and coach fleet management. Prior to the description and validation of specific products and applications, the first part of the paper focuses on an outline of the preconditions which need to be fulfilled in order to enable a widespread and successful introduction of commercially beneficial solutions. These preconditions are user needs, availability of relevant information and European Standards for communication interfaces, traffic and transport information services, commonly agreed location referencing systems and digital road databases. The second part of the paper concentrates on the stationary and mobile in-vehicle equipment which is needed to communicate mobile Transport Telematics services for fleet management applications. The paper concludes with a case study which shows the commercial benefits of fleet management based on dynamic traffic and transport information. The paper also provides information and first preliminary experiences from the World Exposition EXPO 2000 in Hannover, where dynamic navigation systems will be applied in a system for traffic dependent coach management.
Abstract