Since the focus of the development activities are in Europe, Intermap plans to accelerate its NEXTMap Europe plan, beginning with the completion of NEXTMap Germany this year.
Intermap's NEXTMap 3D road vector data can improve ITS applications such as vehicle engine control, which can save on vehicle operating costs including fuel and insurance. Improvements in fuel economy through adaptive cruise control, translate directly to reduced costs of operation, as well as reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Companies in the automotive market have told Intermap that they now have ITS technologies waiting to incorporate 3D road data and have been asking suppliers for accurate 3D road vectors. They also state that the existing 2D road data has not been accurate enough for many ITS applications and can even cause problems in their systems. Intermap has been told that it is the first company to present an accurate 3D solution for this issue.
The agreement announced today underlines the progress Intermap is making in ITS and the Company's ability to attract interest from automotive industry leaders. These joint development relationships will give participating companies the opportunity to showcase the value of incorporating precise 3D road data into future automotive systems.
ITS adoption is well underway with navigation systems already present in most luxury vehicles. Various technologies are now being used in concept cars to test ITS functions such as advanced lane departure warning systems. Future safety features such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), are considered to be the largest opportunity for the auto makers. An example of ADAS is the use of highly accurate digital maps to foresee any upcoming abrupt curves ahead and automate a vehicles capability to navigate the road at an appropriate speed.
Market interest in Intermap's 3D map data has been increasing for ITS applications. Improving advanced car navigation and related applications continues to be a worldwide focus. Moving from today's coarse 2D data to accurate 3D information will provide the automotive industry with more accurate, visually aesthetic, and effective automotive applications.
Intermap's NEXTMAP 3D vector data has been prototyped and proven to support vehicle safety applications and can be used to improve the performance of many new safety systems. Other automotive companies are expected to test Intermap's 3D road data for active safety applications.
The ITS market presents substantial market potential for the NEXTMap datasets and Intermap is addressing this market interest. Brian Bullock, Intermap's President & CEO commented: "We recently accelerated our build plan for NEXTMap USA from 5 years to 3, for targeted completion at the end of 2008. This enables faster expansion into ITS in the US. Since Europe is ahead of the USA in ITS development, we plan to complete NEXTMap Germany in 2006.
About Intermap
Intermap is digitally remapping entire countries, building unprecedented national databases, called NEXTMap. NEXTMap consists of highly accurate digital elevation data, accurate color images and other derived products. Customers purchase Intermap's high-quality, low-cost data to facilitate better decision-making for numerous commercial, governmental, military and consumer applications.
Demand for NEXTMap data is growing as new commercial applications are emerging such as intelligent transportation systems, flood risk management, disaster mitigation, 3D visualization, and Internet mapping. These new markets supplement growth in mainstream markets like geographical information systems (GIS), engineering planning, transportation, irrigation, environmental management, and telecommunications network planning. Internet applications in the future will include virtual tours, education, location based services, and computer games. The products are also used to add 3D to and improve the accuracy of airborne and satellite images.
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Intermap employs more than 250 people worldwide, with offices in Calgary, Ottawa, Munich and Jakarta. Intermap is publicly traded on the TSX under the symbol IMP. For more information, visit www.intermap.com.
Corbet Pala
Investor Relations
E-vestor Communications Inc.
(416) 657-2400
cpala@evestor.com