APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR VEHICLE ECONOMY IMPROVEMENT

A method of determining a coasting area is disclosed, together with methods of providing coasting information to a vehicle driver; coasting being when the vehicle is allowed to decelerate or to roll without being under power. In embodiments, the coasting area is determined by: determining an end point location of a coasting area based upon a location in map data of an expected decrease in speed of a vehicle traversing a road network represented by the map data; determining a start point location of the coasting area based on at least one attribute associated with the map data proximal to the end point location; and generating coasting information indicative of the coasting area having the start point and end point locations. In other embodiments, coasting information is provided to a driver by: determining a location of a coasting area based on a location of a navigation device; and determining whether to output information indicative of the coasting area based on a current speed of travel of the navigation device and, if so, outputting an indication of the coasting area.