Creating and evaluating highly accurate maps with probe vehicles

Many advanced safety and navigation applications in vehicles require accurate, detailed digital maps, but manual lane measurements are expensive and time-consuming, making automated techniques desirable. This paper describes a system that refines and augments commercial digital maps using position traces that come from Global Positioning System receivers with differential corrections. The computed lane models enable safety applications, such as lanekeeping, and convenience applications, such as lane-changing advice. We also present a number of evaluation metrics for estimating the quality of the enhanced maps we generate. Multiple position traces are a powerful new source of data that enables cheap, automated methods of inducing lane models, as well as other geographic knowledge, like traffic signals and elevations, and potentially impacts any geographic information system with a need to relate to actual behavior.