Skip to main content

TomTom partners with UN-Habitat

TomTom has announced a partnership with UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. TomTom’s global Traffic Index data will be used by UN-Habitat and its stakeholders around the world to make strategic decisions when tackling urban congestion. Recently TomTom released the sixth edition of its Traffic Index which revealed a clear pattern of increased congestion. Commuters around the world are spending on average eight working days stuck in traffic. This shows that traditional responses li
November 29, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
1692 TomTom has announced a partnership with UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. TomTom’s global Traffic Index data will be used by UN-Habitat and its stakeholders around the world to make strategic decisions when tackling urban congestion.
 
Recently TomTom released the sixth edition of its Traffic Index which revealed a clear pattern of increased congestion. Commuters around the world are spending on average eight working days stuck in traffic. This shows that traditional responses like building new roads or widening existing ones are no longer an effective way of managing urban congestion.

“Urban areas are growing fast; they are now home to half of the world’s population and are predicted to reach 6 billion by 2050. How we plan and manage our cities in terms of basic services, mobility or connectivity is going to be essential to ensure better cities. TomTom’s data will give us vital insight, providing a more accurate analysis of urban traffic congestion. This will help policy makers and local governments develop sustainable, workable and lasting urban solutions,” said Dr Joan Clos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and UN-Habitat Executive Director.
 
“TomTom is committed to investing in new ideas and technologies with the aim of bringing significant benefits to drivers, businesses and society as a whole. This partnership will help urban planners and government stakeholders make more informed decisions to tackle urban congestion,” added Harold Goddijn, CEO of TomTom International.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Is road user charging the first stop for congestion management?
    July 23, 2012
    David Hytch, Information Systems Director at the Greater Manchester Public Transport Executive, considers just where congestion pricing schemes should sit in transport planners' hierarchy of options for managing demand. On the face of it, Greater Manchester in England's proposed congestion charging scheme hit just about every sweet spot possible when it came to convincing the general public of the need for and benefits of such a venture. There was the promise from national government of almost £3bn-worth of
  • Remote remedies help US authorities identify bridge deficiencies
    September 6, 2017
    Every day 185 million vehicles – cars, trucks, school buses, emergency response units - cross one or more of America’s 55,710 'structurally compromised' steel and concrete road bridges, the highest concentration of which are in Iowa (nearly 5,000), Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Nearly 2,000 of these crossings are located on interstate highways, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's recent analysis of the US Department of Transportation's 2016 National Bridge Inventory.
  • Inrix ranks U.S. most congested developed country in the world
    February 7, 2018
    The U.S. is the most congested developed country in the world, with drivers spending an average of 41 hours a year in traffic during peak hours, costing them nearly $305bn (£220bn) in 2017, an average of $1,445 (£1,042) per driver. The findings come from Inrix’s annual Global Traffic Scorecard, which analysed 1,360 cities across 38 countries. Additionally, the study revealed that the U.S. had three of the top five most congested cities globally, costing an economic drain upwards of $2.5bn (£1.8bn). Los
  • TomTom demonstrates HD Flow technology to improve traffic flow
    October 22, 2012
    TomTom is using the ITS World Congress to focus on how its real time and historical traffic information services and solutions that can help governments and authorities to cost-efficiently find bottlenecks in road networks and also potentially solve them. For instance, TomTom’s HD Flow product delivers speed information for all roads so that traffic flow on the entire road network can be visualised and evaluated. This means that traffic management centres can react more quickly to congestion and improve the