Bosch's TravelPilot is the James Bond driving gadget of your dreams. PCW's very own boy racer, Simon Rockman, takes it for a spin.
Remember the tracking device on board the Aston Martin car in the film Goldfinger? Bosch's TravelPilot makes every driver's spy-movie fantasy a reality. It's an in-car computer system which directs you to places. A CD-ROM drive installed in the boot stores a complete road map of London, and the computer uses this information to locate the car. It looks up the destination and plots the route guiding you there.
A firm price has not yet been set, but it's likely to cost around £3,500 when it reaches the UK market in September. By then it will cover the entire M25 area, with the rest of the UK mainland to follow. The version we tested could only cope with London.
TravelPilot uses the top-of-the-range Blaupunkt Berlin RCM 303 as its interface (Blaupunkt is a division of Bosch). The system will play audio compact discs (ten are stored in the autochanger, which is separate from the CD-ROM player) and cassettes, and has a radio with three antennae to give the best reception possible. There are two circular switches and one rocker switch on the front of the unit. One of the circular switches moves the control between the TravelPilot, radio, cassette and CD. All the features use the 11cm TV screen. The RCM 303 records traffic information, identified by RDS and played over the radio in a separate memory. You can summon up the latest traffic reports by pressing a button in the centre of the circular switch.
The radio and its associated features are wonderful but when the fun stops, the TravelPilot's technology takes over. To use the system, select Set Destination from the first menu, then select an area followed by the street address. This isn't a task you should undertake on the move but a quick stop will pay dividends, and you only need to enter enough of the destination name to be distinctive. There is no information on street numbers so if you are visiting a big road it's best to opt for a small, nearby turning.
When you have entered the details, a large arrow shows the route to your destination as the crow flies and a soothing female voice tells you, "The route is being calculated." The directions use separate audio circuits to the hi-fi, with the advantage that the music doesn't stop when you are given an instruction. This means that the voice can be drowned out if the hi-fi is too loud and there is no "repeat last instruction" button. After a couple of seconds, the computer says: "The route has been calculated", and gives its first instruction.
There are two views, a simple arrow and a vector map. The yellow arrow shows the direction in which you need to travel: if the computer instructs you to turn right at the second turning, the screen will show a right turn with a faint first turning. A bar graph shows how far away that turning is and the arrow turns red as you approach.
The display shows junctions very simply: it can cope with a wiggly line (bear left or right), left and right turns and roundabouts. Because of the way the computer understands forks in the road, it sometimes gives a strange instruction when travelling against the fork.
The vector map shows you all the roads in the area and the route the system has plotted. The view has a zoom from 0.1 of a mile (not detailed enough) to five miles (too crowded) but gives a good view of other routes. The test disc even held some roads on Ministry of Defence land which are not shown on normal maps. In addition to the map, the vector display shows panels containing a small version of the direction arrow which points directly towards your destination, a compass pointing to magnetic north and the number of GPS (global positioning system) satellites in view.
You can use the vector map to get a feel for what lies ahead. The view rotates to show the forward direction. Once you have used the system for a little while, you become confident in it and can relax with the simple spoken directions. These say things like: "Prepare to go straight ahead in 300 yards", or "Take the next left followed by a sharp right". All the instructions are precise and clear.
The TravelPilot is inflexible, so if a new road is built or an old one blocked off, you'd need a new disc. The software will always calculate the same route - there are no alternatives. This means you can't rely on local knowledge and there is very little help on which lane to be in at any given time. It would be good to be able to "avoid" places, and for the road haulage industry it would be particularly useful if the software could be told about busy high streets and low bridges.
Although it's good, the system is still no match for a human navigator. The computer will never say: "Turn left at the Dog and Duck" or "Go under the iron bridge". Destinations have to be entered in the zones the computer understands. The system doesn't cater for postcodes although a postcode facility is being planned for the next release.
The computer stores the names of roads, the screen shows the name of the road you are on and the one you are about to turn into, but the system doesn't read them out. This is a shame, as the reassurance would be welcome. The weakest aspect of the system is that it calculates the shortest route, not the quickest, and the computer takes no account of traffic flow. This is fine in a Porsche at 3am, but in heavy traffic, when overtaking is difficult, a link to a traffic database would be a distinct advantage.
The most important element of the system is the map. The guidance systems only need to direct the computer to the accuracy of one road junction before the map takes over. The GPS locates the car roughly within 25 metres. From here, it can work out the car's position on the map. If you drive out of the area covered by the map, the arrow merely points directly towards your destination. Once you are on the map, the software looks you up.
The GPS isn't used very often. The compass works out which way the car is facing, so it can calculate in which direction you are travelling along the road.
The system keeps track of how far the car has journeyed down the road by measuring the distance travelled. The normal cable-driven odometer is not accurate enough for this purpose so the system uses the magnets in the anti-lock braking system to measure the revolution of the wheels. This needs careful calibration but can still be fooled. Tyre wear can fool the system - but only until you make the next turn. When this happens, the computer checks to see where you are likely to be - it's only going to be a few yards out - and resets the position. The result of all this is a car which always knows where to go.