Sign up for our daily briefing
Make your busy days simpler with Axios AM/PM. Catch up on what's new and why it matters in just 5 minutes.
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Denver news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Denver
Des Moines news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Des Moines
Minneapolis-St. Paul news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Twin Cities
Tampa Bay news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Tampa Bay
Charlotte news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Charlotte
Photo: Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Some forward-looking cities are starting to digitize their traffic rules to help self-driving cars navigate local roadways.
Why it matters: Automated test vehicles are getting better at operating in complex traffic environments, but street signs and lane stripes are an inefficient way to communicate rules to a 21st century vehicle, says Avery Ash, head of autonomous mobility at INRIX, a transportation data company.
- AVs depend on sensors and human-assisted machine learning to understand traffic rules, but something as simple as an obscured stop sign can be confusing to an AV.
What's happening: INRIX created a software tool that lets cities or road authorities build a digital representation of their local traffic rules and then share that catalog with AV developers and operators so they can train their self-driving vehicles.
- 11 cities and road authorities — including Austin, Boston, Detroit and Miami — have signed on to use INRIX Road Rules since its introduction in 2018.
- 4 AV companies — Jaguar Land Rover, May Mobility, nuTonomy and Renovo — are using those digital rules to program their self-driving systems.
- The latest version also helps cities create a digital catalog of things like loading zones and parking restrictions for ride-hailing companies, dockless bike/scooter zones, and city infrastructure like fire hydrants and EV charging stations.
The bottom line: Mobility solutions are unique to every city. It's important for the public and private sectors to share critical information about the local rules of the road.