Telematics in Flanders

Telematics has become an increasingly important science and market in recent years. Its applications range across the entire field of logistics and mobility - from fleet management and vehicle tracking to navigation and dynamic route guidance; from electronic toll collection to emergency calls and remote assistance… all the way through to parcel and load tracking.

With one of Europe's leading automotive manufacturing industries and as a major center in the pan-European distribution and logistics industry, Flanders has become home to a substantial cluster of telematics firms, ranging from technology developers and suppliers through to operators, integrators and the knowledge institutes such as universities. Formalized in 2003 and supported by the Flanders Government, the cluster organization has a wide range of members and is involved with regional, national and European governments for the implementation of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS).

Among its members are:

Acunia International: a leading provider of software and hardware solutions for fleet management, B2B and commercial telematics. The company's off-the-shelf Fleet Package includes an in-vehicle terminal (the CarCube) with touch screen, GPS & GSM/GPRS, and a suite of onboard fleet applications such as driver identification, logbook, onboard navigation, task planning, messaging and hands free phone. It also offers a portfolio of back-end services for the fleet operator.

Alturion: Headquartered in Antwerp, Alturion is specialized in the development of easy-to-use applications and solutions for handheld devices. Its portfolio ranges from GPS routing and navigation systems to custom off-line integrated systems.

Tele Atlas: Established more than two decades ago, Tele Atlas's European headquarters are in Ghent, Flanders. The company provides digital maps and dynamic location content for a variety of automotive, personal navigation, location-based services, geospatial products and database solutions.

Telindus Group: The Telindus Group is headquartered in Belgium and is the parent company of Telindus, which specializes in consulting, integration and management services in areas such as, multimedia convergence, video-surveillance solutions, integrated security, mobility solutions and network access.

Transics: Based at Ypres in West Flanders, Transics is a manufacturer of fleet management solutions and on-board computers for commercial vehicles. It has an installed base of more than 16,000 systems in Europe and one of the largest R&D departments of its kind within Europe. The company began life as the R&D department of a business that provided software for the transport sector. Today it also has offices in France and the Netherlands, and is active in the German, Spanish, and Swedish markets.

For more info: www.telematicscluster.be