NEW technology to help revolutionise journey management for fleets and company car drivers, which will make its debut in the Ford Focus next year, was unveiled by the RAC at the British International Motor Show. A new telematics system, developed by the RAC in conjunction with Nokia and Visteon - Ford's manufacturing components division - was showcased on the RAC stand in a Ford Mondeo.

It was the most technically advanced of a whole raft of new traffic information systems designed to help reduce journey times by giving advance traffic information, route guidance, information on points of interest such as hotels, banks, car parks and garages and at the press of a button breakdown help can be summoned and the emergency services called - the latter in an event of a crash can be called automatically.

The telematics system will debut in Ford's new Focus - probably as an option - with a spokesman for the manufacturer pledging it would be available by the middle of next year. The telematics system is also likely to appear in other Ford models. Ford will market the systems under its new Ford HelpNet brand name.