Luxury carmakers' HERE digital map service taps car sensors for traffic data

Southfield, Michigan

THE digital mapmaker acquired by BMW AG, Audi AG and Daimler AG is rolling out a real-time traffic service that warns of road hazards and helps find parking spaces by utilising the sensors and cameras mounted on board the luxury models of its owners.

The service that will debut early next year is the first use of automotive sensors to provide crowd-sourced data to give drivers immediate information on traffic flow, according to a statement from HERE, the unit acquired from Nokia Oyj in 2015 for US$3.1 billion. The driving data generated by the German luxury cars will provide more detailed information than the crowd-sourced traffic service offered by rival Waze, owned by Alphabet Inc's Google, according to Nicholas Goubert, head of platform product management for HERE.