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

  • Authorities look to MaaS for new solutions and cost savings
    July 18, 2017
    The structure of society and the way in which our cities work will be completely transformed by Mobility as a Service (MaaS), Finland’s minister of transport and communications Anne Berner, told ITS International’s recent MaaS Market conference 2017 in London. In her keynote address, Berner told a packed audience of more than 200 ITS professionals that MaaS has the potential to help governments around the world meet their big city targets such as the rate of employment, the environment, the efficient use of
  • Managing congestion, better information changes perceptions
    January 31, 2012
    Kapsch's Dietrich Leihs talks about the true fundamentals of urban pricing. In some Italian and German towns and cities, the solution to congestion is an outright ban on certain types of vehicles. As far as Dietrich Leihs is concerned, any attempt to sweeten the pill that is congestion charging is only ever going to be a partial success at best.
  • New software enables virtual testing of ADAS systems
    November 3, 2016
    French virtual prototyping solutions provider ESI Group has announced the latest release of its sensor simulation platform Pro-SiVIC, which enables industrial manufacturers to build realistic 3D scenarios and experience them interactively in real-time, eliminating the need for physical prototypes.
  • Does ADAS create as many problems as it solves
    September 23, 2014
    Victoria Banks and Neville Stanton [1] of Southampton University’s Transportation Research Group examine the real impact of creeping driver automation. Safety research suggests that 90% of accidents are thought to be a result of driver inattentiveness to unpredictable or incomplete information and the vision is that highly automated vehicles will lead to accident-free driving in the future.