PTV takes lessons from logistics software to help test AV behaviour

Some people in the transportation industry may be reluctant to treat travellers as goods that need to be shipped from point A to point B. The traffic software engineers at PTV Group are not some of those people. According to Jongsun Won, the lessons he and his colleagues have learned from years of creating logistics software are extremely useful in the new age of autonomous vehicles. “In an autonomous vehicle, people are essentially the goods that are being transported around a city,” Won said. “There are
June 7, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
© F11photo | Dreamstime.com
Some people in the transportation industry may be reluctant to treat travellers as goods that need to be shipped from point A to point B. The traffic software engineers at 3264 PTV Group are not some of those people. According to Jongsun Won, the lessons he and his colleagues have learned from years of creating logistics software are extremely useful in the new age of autonomous vehicles.


“In an autonomous vehicle, people are essentially the goods that are being transported around a city,” Won said. “There are definite lessons to be learned as cities try to figure out how driverless cars are going to behave.”

PTV gives cities a platform they can use to test out different traffic scenarios, so they can identify potential problem areas such as congested intersections and merge lanes. One thing that transportation officials are interested in today, is how autonomous vehicles are going to change traffic patterns—for the better or for the worse.

“The fact is, no-one knows how autonomous vehicles are going to impact traffic. PTV helps collect, study and analyse pertinent data that can provide insight into these behaviours.”

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