This may be too “inside baseball” but there is a real bidding war taking place that might be of interest to those who use Global Positioning System satellite technology.

Both Garmin and Tom Tom, the two biggest names in consumer-based GPS navigation systems, have been in discussions about buying a company called Tele Atlas.

This is all about mapping overlays and that sort of thing but it ultimately comes down to these companies moving more and more in the direction of overlaying real-time traffic information onto their existing products.

This is the only way that these products are going to be truly useful in that they will not send drivers onto roads where even more congestion exists.

This story continues below
Advertisement

Fare hikes

Suburban Metro rail riders are livid and they are letting their feelings be known about the inequities as they perceive them in proposed fare increases. Phil writes: “As a Metrorail rider for 16 years I’ve often wondered how many of Metro’s legendary payroll problems are self-inflicted wounds? For example, at 6:30 p.m. Thursday night my Blue Line train heading for Franconia stopped at the Foggy Bottom station. Why were there FIVE Metro employees congregated in a small group with clipboards in hand? What function are they performing that requires more than one person in the same spot at the same time, let alone five?

“Before the Metro Board implements some record-breaking fare increases they need to answer such questions to the satisfaction of riders.... My experiences to date suggest they can’t provide answers that justify such apparent featherbedding and wasteful staffing.”

Rob is focused more on the fee increases at Metro parking lots as well as some specific complaints and writes in this letter to Metro’s board: “I wanted to state my opposition to the fare hikes proposed for Metrorail and its parking lots. The proposed increases should be called ‘unfair’ hikes.

“I have been riding Metrorail and have been parking in its lots on a regular basis for the past eight years. Most of your fare hikes, while annoying, did not stop me from riding the subway. This one will.

“I do not understand why parking rates at Vienna should increase by more than 25%, ($1.15) while bus rates in D.C. would only be raised by a dime, not even 10%.

“Every time the board raises rates, it comes with the promise of better service, a pledge that usually is not realized. I cannot count how many times I have been late to work thanks to scheduled subways that left late or that simply never arrived at all.