Bedford Driving Lessons

The government’s plans for digital radio switchover have suffered another blow, with the disclosure that up to three million in-car satnav devices rely on the traditional FM radio signal for traffic information. The problem could cost over £1million a year to fix, if the switch from FM to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) goes ahead in 2015 as planned. It affects so-called “smart” satnav devices that are built into cars and give their users real-time traffic information. It potentially affects cars from manufacturers including Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes, Toyota, BMW and Volvo. Currently, the traffic information is encoded and transmitted as an inaudible addition to the FM signals of existing radio stations such as Classic FM. But the satnav devices cannot pick up the DAB signal so, if Classic FM switches to DAB, a way must be found to keep transmitting the traffic information on FM – or else the traffic function on the satnavs will stop working. It is estimated that between 2.5million and 3million devices in the UK use this “RDS-TMC” technology. Paying to transmit traffic information by itself on FM, instead of piggybacking cheaply on an existing radio station signal, could cost “hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds a year”, according to one senior radio industry insider. More