Apple Maps vehicles begin collecting street-level data in Canada
Apple is deploying a fleet of Apple Maps vehicles to begin collecting street-level data in Canada.
The vehicles will be on the streets of Canada from now until November, driving across all 10 provinces, including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island.
Apple Maps vehicles are becoming a familiar sight across the world. Since 2015 when Apple began its home-grown efforts to improve Apple Maps, data collection vehicles have been seen across parts of the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, France, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia, Portugal, Croatia, Japan, Andorra, and Puerto Rico.
The vehicles have already been spotted in the Toronto area.
Apple shared a statement on Monday saying the data collected will be used in a future product update.
Beginning in May, Apple Maps will be driving across Canada throughout the summer. We’ll be capturing road details, signage and landmarks — all to make the most accurate and useful Maps experience possible. The information collected will be worked on by our teams in Cupertino, California. We plan to publish this data in a future product update.
The Apple Post spoke with KJ May who had an encounter with an Apple Maps surveyor when a vehicle was parked in Blackpool, United Kingdom. The driver shared some interesting tidbits regarding the camera rig mounted to the specialist vehicle, in addition to an insight into the process taken to capture the Apple Maps data.
The Maps worker told of how the equipment onboard each vehicle is priced at over half a million pounds, and how they are given a blank map by Apple with streets they need to cover each day as part of the data capturing process.
Apple notes it won’t be collecting data from the northern territories of Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut in Canada, which are sparsely populated.
Image: Reddit user whatifyoutry.