PSA Peugeot Citroen SA is testing a navigation system that identifies the quickest route to any destination in Paris and the suburbs. The system, Inf-flux, has been developed by the car manufacturer, Urba 2000, an organisation charged by the Mayor of Paris with devising more efficient traffic systems, traffic management company CGA, subsidiary of Cegelac SA, itself a part of Alcatel Alsthom SA, and utility company la Compagnie Generale des Eaux SA. The Inf-flux system draws on existing technology including a network of sensors installed in Paris to regulate traffic lights, and the Radio Data System. In the car is an 8-bit Intel Corp microcontroller with some program logic array in order to minimise the number of integrated circuits; a Radio Data System decoder; and the Vehicle Area Network protocol, which reduces electromagnetic interference. The user interface is the standard liquid crystal display unit Peugeot Citroen already uses for its clocks. The on-board system was developed by Peugeot Citroen, Renault SA, Siemens AG and Philips Electronics NV. Drivers identify their point of departure and destination from a list of choices, and the screen blinks back the estimated time of travel between key Paris landmarks, depending on the route taken. The information to be able to do that comes via the multitude of sensors embedded at Parisian traffic lights which send information every three minutes, via some 700 cables embedded in roadways, on speed and density of traffic to the Paris traffic authority’s head office. There, the data is concentrated on an X.11 Unix server. Specialised software to access the database, developed by Clique Development, was created by Carte Blanche Conseil on behalf of Urba 2000. The data is then sent back to the car via the Radio Data System, using industry-standard protocols and over FM radio waves. Peugeot expects to offer Inf-flux as an option on cars sold in the French capital in 1996. There are plans to add other services, such as a voice server, so drivers with Groupe Special Mobile phones could call the server and receive spoken traffic information.
