DUSSELDORF, Germany, February 5 /PRNewswire/ --

Arnaud de Meulemeester, who for the last three years has led the telematics program for PSA Peugeot Citroen, has been named Senior Director in Europe for ATX Group, the world's largest independent telematics provider to the automotive industry.

De Meulemeester will be responsible for developing plans that integrate customized telematics solutions with the business plans of automobile manufacturers. This includes commercial eCall solutions. As the Senior Manager of telematics for five years at PSA and, before that, with Citroen, de Meulemeester deployed eCall service to over nine countries of Western Europe as well as defining premium traffic, fleet management and other location-based services for use in vehicles. He was instrumental in developing the launch of one of the first eCall services deployed in France and Germany.

"Arnaud's experience in telematics and his extensive knowledge of the mobility needs of European drivers fits perfectly into our strategy for expanding the European telematics market through our global telematics platforms that many automobile manufacturers are now beginning to deploy," said ATX President and CEO Steve Millstein.

Prior to his focus on telematics, de Meulemeester was a product marketing manager for three years for Citroen and an information technologies manager for four years in PSA's CAD/CAM Advanced Technologies Department.

De Meulemeester earned his engineering degree at the "Ecole des Mines de Saint Etienne" and his post-graduate degree at ISIA, Ecole des Mines de Paris.

"This is an exciting period to be in telematics as we begin to see automobile manufacturers finalize their telematics strategies, and broad deployments emerge in North America, Europe and Asia," said de Meulemeester. "I decided to move to ATX because I wanted to play a critical role in how those services unfold throughout Europe, which is on the verge of becoming the largest market in the world in new vehicle sales."

ABOUT ATX: Based in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and Dusseldorf, Germany, ATX Group is the world's largest provider of personalized telematics services to the automotive industry, serving both North America and Europe. ATX telematics services are designed to provide enhanced safety, security and driving convenience to vehicle owners. These services include location-specific emergency and roadside assistance, automatic collision notification, stolen vehicle recovery, remote diagnostics and real-time traffic and navigation assistance. ATX also customizes telematics services to help automobile manufacturers and their affiliated dealerships to use telematics data to reduce costs, enhance vehicle servicing, and more closely manage customer relationships. ATX services are provided to vehicle owners through the brand names of its customers -- Mercedes-Benz, BMW, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Maybach, and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. For more information, visit www.atxg.com.

Web site: http://www.atxg.com

Gary Wallace, Vice President, Corporate Relations, ATX Group, +1-800-511-5891, +1-972-753-6230, gwallace@atxg.com