Skip to main content

Autonomous vehicle accuracy mapping from TomTom

Pride of place on satellite navigation pioneer TomTom’s stand is very high resolution 3D mapping, initially for Germany, which it says provides the 10cm accuracy necessary for highly automated vehicles. Its mainstream mapping is also high definition meaning the image can be used on any size of screen – as visitors can see.
October 8, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Matthieu Campion of TomTom with the company's technology

Pride of place on satellite navigation pioneer 1692 TomTom’s stand is very high resolution 3D mapping, initially for Germany, which it says provides the 10cm accuracy necessary for highly automated vehicles. Its mainstream mapping is also high definition meaning the image can be used on any size of screen – as visitors can see.

Also highlighted is the company’s smartphone navigation app – increasingly favoured by occasional users of navigation services while it finds regular users such as delivery drivers are staying with dedicated devices. 
Marketing manager, automotive, Matthieu Campion said his company has many reciprocal agreements with road authorities to both receive and deliver traffic information and is working on algorithms to predict traffic conditions over the coming 15 minutes.  

And with changes happening on 15% of major routes each year, the company is working on speeding the verification and map updating process to a matter of a few days, or potentially hours, rather than weeks or a month as it is currently. “Much depends on where the users’ maps are actually located; in their devices (which are currently updated quarterly) or on our servers which can be readily updated,” says Campion.

There is currently discussions with the vehicle manufacturers about a strategy for high frequency updates and whether to update the area around the vehicle or along the selected route.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • What actually happens if we do #FreetheMIBs?
    May 1, 2020
    Q-Free’s #FREEtheMIBs campaign highlights the use of manufacturer-specific data output, storage and communication protocols in traffic lights and ITS systems.
  • Measuring vehicle lengths with a single loop - promising results
    July 27, 2012
    District 7 of Caltrans has been conducting trials to see whether the use of a single inductive loop to measure vehicle lengths and so identify heavy trucks is feasible. So far, the results have been very promising, according to Lead Transportation Engineer Steve Malkson. Between them, the adjoining ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the US's two biggest, cover some 10,700 acres (43km2) and 68 miles (109km) of waterfront.
  • Electronic toll collection: Change is in the air
    November 7, 2024
    Trends in technology plus users’ comfort in adopting new advances indicate that the environment for a new electronic toll collection architecture is evolving. Hal Worrall considers what this might look like
  • Sampo Hietanen’s mobility mission
    June 17, 2016
    For a decade Sampo Hietanen harboured a vision of an alternative form of mobility, now as CEO of MaaS Finland he is putting theory into practice. Sampo Hietanen has become the embodiment of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) – a concept he created 10 years ago while working for Finnish civil engineering giant Destia. “I had been working with the mobile sector on traffic information and started thinking what will happen when this becomes bigger,” he says.