The hotly-debated topic of electronic ratings measurement technologies has crossed the Atlantic to the US.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that IQStat, Inc. plans to begin testing a new vehicle-based electronic device in around one hundred cars in the Atlanta metro area that would record not only the radio station being listened to by the driver, but also where the driver was when listening. The latter functionality would be provided by Global Positioning System data.

If the trials are successful, the company plans to expand the testing phase to a number of cities around the US ahead of a nationwide rollout plan, to compete with the diary-based system operated by Arbitron, accoding to the paper.