NAVTEQ Attributes

The dictionary defines attributes as: A quality or characteristic inherent in or ascribed to someone or something.  In a map context, attributes can be practically anything that can be ascribed directly or indirectly to a location. Map attributes include both static dimensions such as roads, signs, stores, landmarks, rivers as well as dynamic dimensions such as traffic and weather conditions. Attributes are the muscle and sinew—and intelligence—of a digital map database.

NAVTEQ has developed an exceptionally rich attribute portfolio to give life and intelligence to its database. In all, 204 attributes are organized into 14 categories.

NAVTEQ attributes describe the essential qualities of a map that are needed to provide an aesthetic and useful map display, and enable route planning and guidance to tourist information to advanced driver assistance systems.

The 14 NAVTEQ attribute categories are: 

Link – includes over 50 road classification attributes used to determine an efficient route for a traveler. Key Link sub-categories include:

• General – includes road function class, speed category, and direction of travel
• Access Characteristics – identifies the types of traffic allowed on a link, e.g., carpools, trucks, buses, pedestrians
• Display Characteristics – highlights key aspects of a road or area, such as bridges, paving, private roads, toll ways, and tunnels
• Names and Addresses – focuses on conventions associated with documenting names and addresses, such as address format, scheme route type, and street type
• Name Status – includes exit number, junction name, and name on road sign as used in navigational applications when displaying or announcing street names for the driver to follow in the route guidance directions

Administrative Areas – identifies government entities associated with the sides (left and right) of a link, such as:

• Country
• State
• County
• City
• Settlement
• Postal Codes
• Zones

Points of Interest (POI) – includes named, geo-coded sites such as banks, gas stations, and restaurants. Over 30 attributes are used to characterize POIs, including 24-hour gas stations, types of food served at restaurants, and phone numbers.

Signs – includes representations of textual and graphic information posted along roadways. The attributes covered include:

• Sign Text
• Sign Language Code
• Branch Route Number
• Branch Text
• Toward Route Number
• Branch Text
• Exit Number

Land Use – includes cartography information, principally covering man-made and natural polygons such as shopping centers, schools, airports, lakes, oceans, parks, golf courses, etc. Over 40 Land Use attributes are covered, such as:

• Airports
• Buildings
• Cemeteries
• Golf Courses
• Hospitals
• Islands
• Lakes
• Landmarks
• Parks
• Railroads
• Rest Areas

Country – includes a variety of useful data for a country. Nine attributes are covered, such as Driving Side, Telephone Country Code, and Time Zone.

Nodes – includes intersections, both simple and complex, described through attributes such as:

• Aligned (with adjacent region)
• X-Coordinate (Longitude)
• Y-Coordinate (Latitude)
• Z-Level (Height)

Conditions – includes limitations or qualifications for using a road; for instance, gates that restrict access to residents or those with permission, High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, and restricted maneuvers, such as a U-turn. Over 20 attributes in three sub-categories are included:

• Condition Type – these attributes are subdivided into two sub-categories:  Restricted Driving Maneuver, which includes attributes that define maneuvers that are prohibited; and Gates, which includes attributes that identify the presence of a gate/movable barrier that prohibits the traveler from progressing along the road
• Condition Applies To – these attributes identify which types of access are affected by the condition, e.g., trucks, carpools, buses, etc.
• Condition Date/Time Modifier - these modifiers provide a temporal reference for when conditions are active, such as left-hand turn restrictions apply from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Traffic – includes a standard set of codes for describing traffic conditions, called Radio Data System - Traffic Message Channel (RDS TMC) codes, that include Classes of Traffic Event Types such as roadwork/road closure, accidents, traffic flow, and system availability.  These attributes capture information such as event location, extent, and duration.

Generalization – includes attributes such as Intersections, Roads, and Objects that are captured in NAVTEQ's Composite Road Feature (CRF) coding systems, and provide a means for attributing features such as multiple digitized roads, intersections comprised of multiple links and nodes, and ramp interchanges so that these complex features can be generalized. The result is a simplified representation of these features that can be used for more efficient map display and route calculation.

Additional – extends the value of the database and includes conditional speed limits and total number of lanes on a roadway. Attributes covered include:

• Enhanced Geometry
• Speed Limit
• Special Speed Situation
• Special Speed Limit
• Dependent Special Speed Type
• Variable Speed Sign
• Speed Limit Unit
• Number of Lanes

Extended Lane Information – includes attributes used to describe connected lanes, such as:

• Extended Number of Lanes
• Lane Dependent Validity
• Lane Direction of Traffic Flow
• Connectivity
• Connected Lanes

Map Voice Data – delivers phonetic data, a textual representation of how a word is pronounced, as an add-on to the core map database. These phonetic data are called NAVTEQ Map Voice Data™.  Phonetic data is made up of phonemes, which are sometimes defined as the smallest distinctive units of sound in a given language. Phonetic data enables customers to realize the benefits of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and/or Text-To-Speech (TTS) systems. ASR systems recognize the spoken word by identifying the phonemes and mapping these phonemes to words in the vocabulary. TTS uses phonetic data to build recognizable words and sentences. Use of NAVTEQ's phonetic data permits generally used pronunciation for difficult-to-pronounce and foreign names.

Other – an additional attribute for Direction for Linear Administrative Boundaries, which indicates to which side of the link a name applies.

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