Skip to main content

3D lane geometry for TomTom Orbis Maps

New development uses AI, including fundamental vision models
By Adam Hill January 7, 2025 Read time: 1 min
ADAS requires lane-level maps for reliability and safety (image: TomTom)

Location information provider TomTom has expanded lane geometry data on its Orbis Maps.

The maps now offer "lane-level precision that is measured in centimetres, available on a global scale and continuously refreshed", it says.

Mike Schoofs, the company's chief revenue officer, says the move marks a "transformative step in mapping technology".

Using AI, including fundamental vision models, TomTom Orbis Maps can now produce 3D lane geometry for any road type, by merging crowdsourced observations from production vehicles and dashcams, aerial and satellite imagery and Lidar survey data.

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) rely on lane-level maps for reliability and safety, TomTom says, and the new maps can offer accurate delineation of road surfaces and painted lines, and combine 3D traffic signs with insights into driver movements and behaviour.

This "enables navigation in complex urban environments through better anticipation of tricky situations, such as busy intersections, high-speed junctions, and interactions with vulnerable road users", the company suggests.

It can also help last-mile logistics by enabling transport companies to optimise pick-up and drop-off processes.

"Urban planners also benefit from greater granularity in map data, which helps them make informed decisions on lane-level traffic management, bike lane and public transport planning, and parking space optimisation," TomTom says.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Digital Light Processing transforms travel information
    July 19, 2012
    David Crawford investigates the potential of new projection technology. Fifty years on from its invention of the microchip, US company Texas Instruments (TI) has compressed the technology into a surface area of just 4.3mm. As such, it forms the heart of a new Pico Digital Light Processing (DLP) system that is set to transform travel information delivery for millions of users on the move - by making it projectable.
  • Pilot shows how wi-fi data could improve London Underground journeys
    September 11, 2017
    Journeys on London Underground could be improved through Transport for London (TfL) harnessing wi-fi data to make more information available to customers as they move around London, new research has shown. The four-week TfL pilot, which ran between November and December last year, studied how depersonalised wi-fi connection data from customers' mobile devices could be used to better understand how people navigate the London Underground network, allowing TfL to improve the experience for customers.
  • Volvo demonstrates its ingenious self-parking car
    June 21, 2013
    Volvo Car Group has developed what it claims is an ingenious concept for autonomous parking. The concept car finds and parks in a vacant space by itself, without the driver inside. The smart, driverless car also interacts safely and smoothly with other cars and pedestrians in the car park. Vehicle 2 Infrastructure technology informs the driver when the service is available. The driver uses a mobile phone application to activate the autonomous parking system and then leaves the car. The vehicle uses sensors
  • Looking both ways for speeding vehicles
    June 9, 2015
    Single-camera bi-directional speed enforcement can reduce the cost of enforcing speeding on two-way roads without repositioning the camera. Truvelo has received UK type-approval for a simultaneous bi-directional (SBD) enforcement camera, the D-Cam P digital, which can capture speeding motorist both those travelling towards and away from the camera. It is also in the process of carrying out the first installations of the D-Cam P in the UK.