Shares in British traffic technology firm ITIS Holdings surged in value on Wednesday after it announced a deal to supply Ford with traffic messaging on cars bound for the UK market, according to a Reuters report.
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The report said that the deal involves some 70,000-100,000 cars a year and will put ITIS’s RDS-TMC systems in Ford’s Mondeo model immediately and extend the service across Ford’s model ranges as well as models in Ford’s PAG group – Land Rover, Aston Martin, Volvo and Jaguar.
The RDS-TMC traffic messaging system, which ITIS already supplies to BMW, gives drivers real-time traffic and route management data in a tie-up with car services firm the Automobile Association (AA).
“It crosses the line and takes the service out of the luxury car market,” ITIS Chief Executive Stuart Marks told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“A lot of analysts have questioned whether the manufacturers would actually invest in the (telematics) market and this is good news for the whole market,” he added.
