Dash Marshall

Client
Bloomberg Philanthropies and Aspen Institute Center for Urban Innovation
Joint Venture with
Star City Group

We built the first global survey of autonomous vehicles (AVs) to help cities learn from each other.

The Global Atlas of Autonomous Vehicles in Cities was debuted at CityLab Paris in November 2017 and will be maintained and updated through 2018. It is one of multiple resources that we created, together with urban planning studio Bits and Atoms, to support the Bloomberg Aspen Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles.

Screen capture of the AV Atlas website front page

Echoing the Initiative’s focus on local government, the Atlas tracks cities around the world where the municipality is involved in piloting AVs or preparing to do so. Each entry is presented as a short briefing that includes algorithmically generated suggestions for other cities that are addressing similar topics.

Three screenshots showing example city profiles from the AV Atlas

The content is the focus, of course, but one of our favorite visual details is the use of city street networks in the background of each page.

Diagram showing how the background of each city profile is a faint map of that city's street grid

The Atlas started with a survey of three dozen cities to understand what they were doing in terms of AV pilots, policymaking, and planning. The results of this survey helped us create a taxonomy of priorities, partners, and uses that provide filtered views of global AV-related activity. For instance, you can quickly see which other cities are partnering with universities or who is exploring the use of AVs for paratransit.

The Atlas was launched at CityLab 2017 in Paris. Photo courtesy of Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The Atlas was launched at CityLab 2017 in Paris. Photo courtesy of Bloomberg Philanthropies.