In just two days, more than 400 employees of the company mapped 2,200 sq kms of the country''s capital, Delhi. The teams used 23 survey vehicles and captured 11,113 kilometres of road.

Mapping such a big metropolis for navigation purposes is an astonishing achievement as signposts are few and far between so features such as one-way streets and turn restrictions had to be worked out and checked by the teams on the road.

In addition, information on more than 8,000 POIs (points of interest) was collected. The navigation CD offers direct access to over 2,326 government offices, 1,904 places of worship, 1,352 restaurants, 623 hospitals, 410 petrol stations, 108 shopping centres, 106 embassies, 94 parking places, 43 cinemas, 39 railway stations, 38 car dealers, 14 stadiums, four hotels, two airports, and more. To make navigation even easier, the team also integrated 75 per cent of house number ranges in Delhi.

The results of the fieldwork were processed at Tele Atlas facilities in Ghent, Belgium, and Harsum, Germany. Because of the time difference, all parties concerned invested a lot of spare time at night and on weekends to meet the challenge.

The navigation CD was produced in June and tested in Delhi with a standard Blaupunkt TravelPilot DX navigation system.

Tele Atlas is a worldwide leader in the development of state-of-the-art geographic databases. It has the largest portfolio of the most highly detailed and positionally accurate digital maps of both Europe and North America, covering around 343 million inhabitants in 18 European countries and providing 100 per cent coverage of the whole of North America.