If you've been in a late model car recently, you may have seen and maybe even used its navigation system.
It takes only a minute to enter a destination into the car's computer and,voila, the system gives you turn-by-turn directions.
NHPR Correspondent Chris Jensen took a ride in the North Country with a couple of the guys who put that information in the system in the first place.
VOICE FROM A NAVIGATION SYSTEM SAYING “THE ROUTE IS BEING CALCULATED.”
As you might imagine, the electronics in car navigation systems involve a computer working with a global positioning system.
Using signals from several satellites, the gps tells the computer exactly where the vehicle is at that moment. .
Then the computer uses its map data to figure out the directions.
In New Hampshire, that map comes from the work of a couple of guys named Tony and Spencer.
Tony Scavuzzo and Spencer Walker have mapped mile after mile after mile of roads here in the Granite State.
They work for a Chicago firm called Navteq.
The company provides maps for most car navigation systems.
(do we have any tape here…something that will introduce us to Tony and Spencer?? I feel we’ll be going on too long without any tape)
Today Scavuzzo and Walker are mapping some of The North Country around Bethlehem.
They’ve been through here before but there are some new roads, including Peppersass Lane, just off Swazey Lane.
SOUND OF THEM FINDING AND THEN RECORDING INFORMATION ON PEPPERSASS LANE.
Here is how it works.
They drive a white Ford Escape with a basketball-size dome on the top. That’s the global positioning receiver.
There is a huge computer screen mounted on the dash. It takes signals from the GPS.
Their path shows up as a green line.
Tony drives while Spencer takes electronic notes.
Addresses.
Speed limits.
One-way roads.
Gas stations.
All are jotted down and show up at the right spot on the map screen.
Sometimes this slow-speed cruising makes the locals suspicious. Tony Scavuzzo.
“We get policemen pulling us over, saying “What are you doing? I’ve seen you three times in this area in the last 30 minutes. Are you lost?
We just explain what we are doing and that what we are doinog is making sure other people don’t get lost.”
Walker says they drive as much as 700 or 800 miles a week. But then there is time in the office in Biddeford, Maine.
What they like about the job is the variety.
Tony Scavuzzo. “You never know what you are going to see around the next corner. It is really fun being a modern-day Lewis and Clark sometimes.”
Navteq has teams throughout North America gathering information in the same way.
Eventually it is all sent off to Mother Navteq in Chicago.
Navteq then sells that information to the companies that make navigation systems.
Scavuzzo and Walker try to cover every road, no matter how small.
But such detail may not show up in every car’s navigation system.
The reason is that more information costs more. It may also require a more powerful – and therefore more expensive - computer.
Not all automakers want to spend that much.
That is why – sometimes - a navigation system may – in effect - throw its arms up in the air and admit you are on your own.
SOUND OF NAV VOICE.
“Your destination is located in an area where turn-by-turn guidance cannot be provided.”
For NHPR News, this is Chris Jensen
