Tele Atlas, a worldwide provider of digital map databases and real-time traffic information in the United States, has released the latest version of its turn-by-turn digital map database-North America 3.2 in MultiNet Shapefile and MultiNet GDF formats. Other formats, such as Oracle Spatial, ESRI SDE Export, Telcontar RMF, and MapInfo TAB will be released shortly, according to the company. "This database upgrade affirms Tele Atlas' continued commitment to rapidly enhancing the quality, content and coverage of its North American database," the company said in a statement. "It will enable routing and navigation applications to work better than ever with more current data and more fully-attributed coverage." "The advances in Tele Atlas' MultiNet North America 3.2 product release prove Tele Atlas' commitment to its customers and partners to deliver the real-world map data and content they need for developing better and more accurate applications," said Earl Nordstrand, data product manager, ESRI. "The new MultiNet North America 3.2 product release has been well received by our customers," said David Wood, senior vice president of marketing for Telcontar. "This release is a very positive sign for our industry and Tele Atlas is encouraging LBS service and navigation providers to develop new and innovative applications, which will drive industry growth." "As ESRI and Telcontar suggest, application developers need the most updated data that reflect the rapidly changing world, and they rely on map data providers who can move quickly and deliver increased data coverage, features and attribution," said Elissa Fink, vice president product marketing and planning at Tele Atlas. "Tele Atlas MultiNet 3.2 meets and exceeds these requirements by including more North American coverage, more road and street features and more of the data that organizations need to build customer-satisfying navigation, location-based and GIS applications and systems." According to Tele Atlas, MultiNet North America 3.2 sets new standards with its positional accuracy - nearly 82 percent of the US population lives in areas where Tele Atlas street data meets the 8 meter RMS standard. Additionally, the company said this release includes: - Increased turn-by-turn population coverage in the United States by 15 percent, thereby increasing the coverage 55 percent to 63.3 percent. This represents an increase in the number of fully attributed miles covered in the database by 28 percent - Turn-by-turn coverage for Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver covering 9.6 percent of the Canadian population - Additional land use polygons, including 100 percent of commercial U.S. airports, major universities, major shopping centers, golf courses, and U.S. government bases for the top U.S. markets, making it easier for users to associate the real world with the map - Double the number of city centers in the U.S., increased city centers in Canada tenfold, thereby offering users more destinations from which to navigate or route - Improved method of classifying roads, giving developers greater flexibility for building more accurate and faster routing algorithms - Increased availability of postal center points for geocoding and routing applications, providing more geocoding flexibility and greater ability to offer destination searching - Enhanced geocoding performance by incorporating new and refreshed address information, making LBS, routing and navigation applications operate better and providing consumers with improved functionality to enter an address in an application and find exactly the right location - The only turn-by-turn map directly linked to an extensive traffic feed with traffic data today covering 98 percent of the urban population. Tele Atlas delivers a live, real-time traffic data feed and its database includes more location codes for highly accurate traffic reporting, which enable application providers to build real-time routing applications and services, according to the company. About Tele Atlas Tele Atlas is a worldwide provider of digital maps. Its North American subsidiary is based in Menlo Park, Calif. The company says it enables its customers' successes through unsurpassed leadership in delivering both high-quality digital maps and real-time traffic information for business and consumer applications. Tele Atlas focuses on providing content to market sectors including telematics/automotive navigation, location based services (LBS), and geographic information systems (GIS). For more information on Tele Atlas products and services, visit www.na.teleatlas.com.