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

  • Smarter mapping makes for more informed decisions
    December 2, 2016
    Following his keynote presentation at the 2016 ITS World Congress in Melbourne, ITS International caught up with Esri founder Jack Dangermond. It is getting close to half a century ago that Jack Dangermond and his wife Laura founded the Environmental Research Systems Institute – known today as Esri - of which he remains president.
  • Getting more for less from traffic data
    August 15, 2012
    Collection of traffic and transit data has grown significantly, combining with advances in connectivity and computational modelling to good effect. Desire to do more with less – to make budgets go further – has helped create a boom in the collection and study of traffic and transport data. Studies are becoming longer, greater in number and further in-depth as more intelligence is sought, plus, transportation agencies are looking to make processes of data collection less costly, or more efficient.
  • The move towards shared telematics platforms
    February 27, 2013
    Is the end for dedicated, in-vehicle telematics systems now in sight? Some seemed to think so at the recent Telematics Munich 2012 conference… Geoff Hadwick reports. Forget smartphone apps – leave that sort of thing to Apple and Google,” Roger Lanctot, associate director of the global automotive practice at consultancy Strategy Analytics told more than 700 delegates in Munich last month at the Telematics Munich 2012 conference. They are a waste of time and money, he said. Forget putting too much data on das
  • Septentrio demos AV localisation tech
    January 23, 2020
    Septentrio has provided GPS/global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology for computer vision supplier Artisense’s Visual Inertial Navigation System (VINS).