Cleantech Index Selects Skymeter as One of "Next 10" Emerging Leaders

Toronto, Canada, October 25, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Today, Canada’s Corporate Knights Inc, released two lists. The Cleantech 10 (tm) names Canada’s top ten publicly traded cleantech companies, while the Cleantech Next 10 highlights emerging cleantech leaders of tomorrow. The Cleantech Next 10 list includes alphabetically from East to West, from Quebec Enerkem and SiXtron Advanced Materials, from Ontario: Cyrium, EnerWorks, Fifth Light, Skymeter, Stormfisher Biogas, and Vive Nano; and from British Columbia General Fusion, and Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies.

The Corporate Knights (an independent Canadian-based media company) selected its Cleantech Next 10 with an advisory panel of Canada’s foremost authorities on cleantech, based on four judging criteria: creativity and original approach, solving a business problem, clear business objective, and best chance of breaking through.

“Clearly we are delighted to be named among the next group of winners, especially as the current publicly traded cleantech winners [The Cleantech 10 (tm)] have outperformed the S&P/TSX by 50% this year [according to the Corporate Knights press release]”, says Skymeter CEO, Kamal Hassan. “Of course the bigger challenge in the eyes of our shareholders is to get onto The Cleantech 10Ô, so I know where my focus is.”

This news release follows a steady and sustainable interest in clean technologies over the past few years. “I think this shift in technology and technology investment will be with us for some time. I think sustainability will stick, and I think that metering and its critical uses for both transportation funding and transportation demand management has a huge upside as we electrify our automotive fleet. 2009 has been a huge wake-up call for this issue in the United States”, Bern Grush, Skymeter’s founder and Chief Scientist points out.

“We’re very pleased that as a company that addresses traffic congestion and automotive emission measurement, Skymeter stands out for analysts in the cleantech space. Our solution promises to create exciting new business models that cross a number of categories such as “pay-as-you drive” road-use and insurance while addressing key issues such as parking congestion and infrastructure funding,” said Hassan recently.

This report follows some positive developments in both the US and Asia. The United States Congressional Commission on National Surface Transport Infrastructure Financing (NSTIF) released a report February 26th, 2009, recommending that the U.S. transition from fuel taxes to a system where all roads are financed by drivers’ actual use of roads. The commission states that this can be done privately, efficiently, and most cost-effectively, by using GPS-based tolling technology (such as that offered by Skymeter). In their report the Commissioners wrote: “If the federal government fails to act now…we will waste non-renewable petroleum and harm our environment unnecessarily.” In September 2009, RAND Corporation, released a report “Implementable Strategies for Shifting to Direct Usage-Based Charges for Transportation Funding” naming GPS metering as one of three viable technologies – and the one with the most flexibility.

The Skymeter solution further underscores the opportunity for America. “Opting for a sensibly-designed VMT user fee system, America’s total CO2 emissions will be reduced by 5% or 350 million metric tonnes, the same reduction as if one out of every four cars on the road were replaced by electric cars,” says Skymeter’s Hassan.

Recently, Cisco Korea endorsed Skymeter as its technical solution partner of choice for ‘Smart Transportation Pricing’ technology in the city of Seoul under the Connected Urban Development program (CUD), which “demonstrates how to reduce carbon emissions by introducing fundamental improvements in the efficiency of the urban infrastructure through information and communications technology (ICT).

Skymeter Corporation is a Toronto, Canada-based data services operator that enables location-based payments using financial-grade GPS telematics. Its billing-delivery services include Time, Distance and Place (TDP) metering for road use, parking and PAYD insurance. These services incorporate methodologies for both privacy and anonymity to ensure motorists enjoy complete privacy while traveling and absolute confidentiality of their trips. This is equivalent to an anonymous, in-car cell-phone that automatically pays for all these services based on actual usage. Skymeter enables every form of road-use charging from congestion management for small metropolitan areas such as London (UK), and Stockholm's cordon charges, through intercity tolling systems such as E-ZPass does now up to weighted metering for every mile for every vehicle in a state, province or country in order to replace fuel taxes and manage demand.

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