Navigation off course?

摘要

Most mobile phone-based navigator aids routinely fail to protect residential areas in Dutch towns from through traffic, according to a Netherlands research organisation. They mostly perform well, however, in deterring motorway users from taking short cuts via secondary roads. The Hague-based Stichting Onderzoek Navigatiesystemen (SON, Navigation Systems Research Foundation) has used location-specific tests to try and find why devices typically fail to identify what it describes as inappropriate routes in built-up areas - and avoid recommending them. The problem stems from software flaws, it concludes in its first-ever published report (on which it issued a press release in 21 languages). SON sees these flaws as lying within a category of software errors that should have been detected in trial runs and eliminated. The protection of low-trafficked pedestrian areas is a major government policy concern in the Netherlands (see panel) and SON sees these flaws as frustrating investments in residential districts which aim to keep out through traffic and lower speeds by implementing speed ramps, road narrowing and chicanes. It is therefore warning of potentially serious consequences without industry action, official intervention and heightened consumer awareness. It highlights the risk of increased levels of road traffic accidents (RTAs), as well as the environmental consequences of roads not intended for heavy use being filled with traffic diverting from other routes.