Mapmaker AND provides MapFusion to Dutch government to enable autonomous driving

Collected through the on-board car sensors of Brabant roadside inspectors vehicles, AND’s MapFusion automatically keeps map and location data up-to-date

Capelle aan den IJssel, the Netherlands, 20 March 2018 – AND is happy to announce a collaboration with Talking Maps, a pilot with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, the province of Noord-Brabant and V-Tron. AND ensures that data collected by smart cameras in the vehicles of roadside inspectors automatically improves, updates and enriches map and location data via MapFusion.

This collaboration starts with a pilot where the focus is on improving, updating and enriching HD Maps with road marking and traffic signs on the Maasvlakte-Venlo corridor, covering approx. 200 km. The next phase will be set up on the basis of the pilot results. HD Maps provide a highly accurate model of the road network which enables the self-driving car to manoeuvre very accurately and determine its exact location. This is critical for advanced driving applications and cooperative and autonomous driving.

AND follows the trend in the automotive sector of more and more vehicles getting connected to the Internet and equipped with advanced sensors. Map and location data are an essential component for more advanced safety, eco-efficiency, comfort and autonomous driving. The conventional way of creating maps no longer fulfills the requirements of these modern functions and systems. AND’s MapFusion not only ensures an unprecedented richness and accuracy of map data, but also delivers it at substantially lower costs. Earlier, AND announced its collaboration with Continental to automatically enrich and maintain digital maps.

Hugo van der Linde, CEO AND: “We are very excited to use our MapFusion technology, together with V-Tron, for knowledge questions of governments and other Talking Traffic partners. AND automatically integrates data from the car to create highly detailed and up-to-date maps. With this pilot AND aims to provide fresh data and give an extra boost for autonomous and cooperative driving with both passenger cars and trucks in the Netherlands.”

Initially cars from the Brabant roadside inspectors will be used for this pilot. Later, other road authorities are likely to join the Talking Maps trail, which means that even more vehicles will be collecting data.

Intertraffic
The Talking Maps project will be kicked off this afternoon at 14:00 at the international mobility fair Intertraffic Amsterdam at the RAI exhibition centre in Amsterdam. You are welcome to attend. For more information you can visit the program SmartwayZ.NL: 08.304, Smart Mobility Hall, Intertraffic Amsterdam.

About AND
AND is one of only four companies that offer worldwide proprietary digital map data and the only independent one. AND thereby focuses on innovative map data technologies to create better and more relevant map data.

This is an English translation of the Dutch press release. In the event of any disparity between the Dutch original and this translation, the Dutch text will prevail.