Ran Chengqi, deputy director of China Satellite Navigation Engineering Center, has said the new satellite navigation system would be used in guiding traffic and monitoring sports venues during the Beijing Olympics in summer 2008.

The Compass Navigation Satellite System, which consists of five positioning satellites orbiting the Earth, will help ease traffic problems during the Olympics by providing detailed positioning information to individual drivers.
The home-grown navigation system, coded as Beidou in the Chinese pronunciation for the compass, can not only pinpoint precise locations of moving vehicles, but also tell drivers real-time traffic on routes to their destinations.

In working for the Olympics, Ran Chengqi said, the Beidou system would be compatible to the prevailing global positioning system (GPS), which was developed by the U.S. military and is now in wide civilian use worldwide.

China had primarily constructed the experimental satellite navigation web by May 2003, via launching three Beidou satellites into space. In February and April 2007, another two satellites were separately sent into orbit. The cluster of five Beidou satellites are now the main infrastructure of the Chinese satellite navigation network.
the Shanghai-based Wenhui Daily quoted Ran Chengqi as saying China is going to launch more navigation satellites in 2008.
Source: English.eastday.com