Navigate from A to B, but via C and D
Today’s navigation systems such as TomTom are designed to move people from A to B in the shortest possible way. This is very good when you are on the road. However, tourists would like to go from A to B, and probably back to starting point A, but via C and D, and perhaps staying a while at C because there is a local market or something. Tourists would like to take the nicest path, not the shortest.
Abel (named after Abel Tasman, who ‘discovered’ Tasmania) is a PDA-based navigation system that fills that need for tourists. It takes you from A to B, gives you information about sites while you pass it. It gives you the possibility to stop at a sight you are about to pass.
Information that can be given to the tourist can be historic, for example about buildings, but also very up-to-date, for example to notify the tourist about a market that is in the neighbourhood right at this moment.
It is a mix of technique, tourism, and accurate information. Right now only available at a single district in the east of the Netherlands, but plans are to make it available everywhere in the Netherlands.
This is the promotion video (in Dutch):
