We are helping build smart cities with traffic data, maps: TomTom founder Corinne Vigreux

Dutch multinational technology firm TomTom was one of the leaders in personal navigation devices (PND) until GPS with Google Maps became the mainstream in smartphones. Although the PND industry has died a slow death, TomTom has evolved and flourished. Corinne Vigreux, the founder of TomTom, tells Business Today how the company shifted its focus to evolving mapping solutions and has set up its second largest site in Pune.

It is widely known that mapping is a key pillar for autonomous driving technology and that autonomous vehicles need high-definition maps (HD Maps) to position themselves on the road, to plan their path and to assist the vehicle sensors. That is why we have invested in this technology early on, launching the TomTom HD Map in 2015 and quickly becoming the leader in coverage of HD Maps, with nearly 4,00,000 km mapped across Europe, the US and Japan. We now have coverage in 48 US states and 19 European countries. We are also partnering with Baidu to create HD maps for China. Our ambition is to shape the future of mobility and take a front seat in the autonomous driving space through our contribution.