Date: 22/09/2009

NXP and Skymeter are partnering to offer road-use metering technology

NXP Semiconductors and Skymeter have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly offer latest road-metering solutions for road user charging (RUC) and other automotive-related mobile payment markets.

RUC market will gain GPS-based vehicle positioning through this joint-effort. The new system comply with cross-border interoperability requirements such as the European Electronic Tolling System (EETS) directive in upcoming projects in the Netherlands, France, and other regions in Europe and the rest of the world. NXP's Automotive Telematics On-board unit Platform (ATOP) chipset is to power this new system along with the use of Skymeter's GNSS-based Time, Distance & Place Billing Data applications and services.

Skymeter's CTO Preet Khalsa says, "Until now we have found only two GPS chipsets designed to support our liability-critical process for financial-grade GPS applications needed for road pricing. NXP's technology will undoubtedly enhance our current technical offering, but will also provide state-of-the-art advances in a way that will lower our expense and our requirement for power and space - the two most valuable commodities in the telematics industry."

"NXP is the front runner in road user charging solutions. Our ATOP solution is part of the first practical test of road user charging in the Netherlands. We are impressed with Skymeter's GPS position reliability in the most difficult of environments and are very excited to collaborate with Skymeter to showcase the ATOP platform in such a rigorous application," says Frank Daems, director of business development, NXP Semiconductors. "We are also impressed that Skymeter's service architecture provides both technical and policy-based offerings that can be customized to virtually any road pricing need. The ability to jointly offer a variety of privacy-sensitive value-added services and solutions using Financial Grade GPS is a key advantage for the road pricing market, which ATOP is targeted for."