Chapter 25: GPS and Vehicular Travel

The development of the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) has had profound implications for many fields, of which transport is but one. While originally developed by the US military, the availability of the signals broadcast from the constellation of GPS satellites circumnavigating the earth has spawned a variety of non-military applications, many of which are marketed directly to consumers. While less well known, the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) provides similar capabilities, but limited satellite availability and reliability problems mean that it is difficult to use as a standalone location system (Khoo and Luk, 2002). The European Commission and the European Space Agency are now developing Galileo, a satellite-based system that, unlike the US and Russian competitors, will be under civilian, not military, ownership (Khoo and Luk, 2002). The availability of satellite-based location systems seems assured under these developments, and this provides confidence in the long-term future of applications that rely on this technology.