Making smarter cars means working together with the people who maintain and operate the roads, so it’s promising to see location platform operator HERE announce a partnership with the Iowa Department of Transportation to help usher along the deployment of automated vehicle tech.
The alliance will see Iowa designate a part of I-380 between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids as a development corridor for creating car-to-infrastructure communication, as well as dynamic maps for using in automated cars, real-time traffic monitoring and more. The end goal is to lay the groundwork for automated driving for use both by consumers and by freight shipping companies transporting goods along the corridor.
HERE’s team-up with Iowa could give it a big advantage in terms of gaining relevance over the next few years – companies building self-driving shipping tech will be looking to providers whose platforms integrate with local city and state infrastructure, and whose systems operate across state lines as they look to build and supplement their own solutions.
Via The Verge