France

There are three TMC services active in France: a free public service covering the autoroute (motorway/freeway) network, and two commercial services from V-Trafic and ViaMichelin provided to the owners of certain navigation systems.

The Ministry of Public Works in conjunction with the autoroute operators provide a free public TMC service covering the autoroute network and broadcast along motorways nationwide on the Autoroute Radio 107.7FM channel.

Since 2000, traffic information provider Mediamobile offers V-Trafic (http://www.v-trafic.com/), a TMC service for France. This service provides traffic information over the internet, via mobile phones, GPRS-equipped PDA and TMC-enabled satellite navigation systems.

The service is broadcasted nationwide on FM station. It covers in detail Paris, Ile de France, main cities and recently the Southwest of France as well as the majority of the motorways and the national network - over 80% of daily traffic. Data is provided by a variety of sources such as the Police, city road departments and motorways management companies, using automatic loop detectors, cameras, floating car data from taxis and reports from patrol vehicles.

The service is available to car drivers and navigation system users of several brands (on a conditional access basis, through direct arrangements between V-Trafic and the vehicle / navigation system manufacturers).

For more details, please check the V-Trafic website.

In October 2005 in France, ViaMichelin launched ViaMichelin Traffic, a new traffic information service which combines ViaMichelin’s proven know-how in processing geographical information with its experience of real-time navigation guidance.

ViaMichelin has made the strategic choice to offer this service using the TMC (Traffic Message Channel) standard. Meeting a strong requirement from drivers, be it private individuals or professionals, it is compatible with all GPS navigation systems from manufacturers who have made a TMC agreement with ViaMichelin.

ViaMichelin Traffic is accessible via any GPS navigation system with TMC traffic information capability from manufacturers who have made a TMC agreement with ViaMichelin. It informs motorists about traffic conditions (traffic jam, slow-moving traffic, contra-flow systems…), safety aspects (weather warnings…) and unforeseen events (road accidents, road works…) while they are on the road.

This real-time traffic information covers all metropolitan areas in France.

Data is collected by Public Authorities (police, fire brigades), official State sources, Local Authorities (town halls, regions) and motorway companies. At the same time, the Centre d’Etudes Techniques de l’Equipement (Centre for Technical Equipment Studies), which comes under the authority of the Direction de la Sécurité Routière (Road Safety Authority), centralises the traffic information supplied by the seven French regional centres: the CRICRs, regional road traffic information centres, including the famous centre at Rosny-Sous-Bois.

ViaMichelin standardises, combines and then integrates all traffic information: sorting messages, the priority of the information to be circulated, formatting, adding complementary information (length of events, etc.). This data is then converted to the TMC (Traffic Message Channel) format.

The ViaMichelin Traffic service, coded in TMC format, is broadcast via the RDS (Radio Data System) FM channel. ViaMichelin has chosen the number one private FM broadcasting group, Towercast (NRJ Group), in order to cover over 80% of the French population.

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