iTIS Interim Results Published

[Darren]

iTIS, one of the two UK suppliers of RDS-TMC Traffic Information and the UK leader has published interim half-year results for Apr-Sep 2008.

Total revenue is up a modest 3% against an operating loss of £0.43m (compared with a profit of £2.18m in 2007).

iTIS derive their income from three key areas, RDS-TMC licences to vehicle manufacturers, PND manufacturers and Trafficlink, a business iTIS acquired in 2007 and which distributes traffic information to broadcasters and the media.

With the economic downturn severely impacting new car sales this has affected the sale of RDS-TMC licences which is heavily dependent on the market, especially premium/luxury car sales which are the worst affected.

iTIS has fixed overheads to maintain its infrastructure and the fear is that poor financial results will impact on investment in improving data quality and coverage. However iTIS are now testing components of their Transport Protocol Expert Group (TPEG) service called Traffic Event Compact (TEC) which provides a similar service to TMC but instead delivered over Digital Radio (DAB). This digital delivery medium provides faster delivery and more data although the issue with DAB signal coverage is an issue that will need to be overcome.
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Darren Griffin

[Allan_whoops]

As I understand it, DAB protocols vary from country to country which is why the main aftermarket ICE manufacturers haven't gone near it which in turn led to the withdrawl from DAB of numerous stations about 18 months ago. At a guess, that means that TMC using DAB will not be European wide.

[gem]

England (via the Highways Agency) have the DAB traffic channel of course. Scotland (via another roads department) have nothing.

I would far rather see a proper working version of TMC with much better coverage than expand to digital radio.

It's ridiculous you travel down the M74 and M6 and Cumbria etc etc has no TMC coverage.

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