Developments in the realization of a Pan-European digital street map for vehicle navigation and information systems

The paper focuses on the fact that navigable digital street maps are one of the critical success factors for vehicle navigation systems and information systems. For a long time data have formed the main bottle-neck in the development and market introduction of these systems as a successful mass market application in Europe. This paper describes how this bottle-neck is solved and how it has eventually led to the realization of a European standard and availability of a uniform digital street map.