Uber turns its mapping efforts to Australia
Ride-hail service Uber is stepping up its bid to map the world, with Australia the latest country in its sights, according to the company. A spokesperson for Uber said "several dozen" of its drivers would be on the Gold Coast's roads with cameras mounted on their cars to process images. Manik Gupta, head of product at Uber Maps, said the aim was to provide as much data as possible about traffic patterns, and pick-up and drop-off locations, while highly detailed maps would be crucial to driverless cars. It has been reported that Uber is looking to invest $500m in global mapping.

Like Google and even Tesla, Uber wants to map the world down to the right-hand lane and Australia is the focus of its latest effort.

Following mapping projects in the U.S., Canada and the UK, as well as Mexico and South Africa, the transport giant is launching locally on the Gold Coast Monday, with a wider rollout to follow.

"Existing maps are a good starting point, but some information isn't that relevant to Uber, like ocean topography," Manik Gupta, head of product at Uber Maps, said in a statement emailed to Mashable.

"There are other things we need to know a lot more about, like traffic patterns and precise pickup and dropoff locations. Moreover, we need to be able to provide a seamless experience in parts of the world where there aren’t detailed maps -- or street signs."

Unlike most other markets where Uber has rolled out its mapping project, a number of driver vehicles on the Gold Coast will be fitted with devices to collect data about routes, rather than Uber's own cars. Like the Google Street View car, Uber's camera will sit on top of the vehicle collecting imagery.

An Uber spokesperson told Mashable "several dozen" Uber driver cars would be on the road mapping the Gold Coast from Monday.

"It was very successful in Cape Town, with cameras going all the places riders are going anyway," he said. "It means we're not adding extra vehicles to the road."

To reassure privacy-concerned riders, Uber claims the devices will not keep imagery around "initial pick-up or final drop-off locations."

Uber is just one party in something of a global mapping arms race. Gupta was formerly part of Google's Maps team, and Uber relies on that company's data to deliver its service in many regions.

Highly detailed road maps will be integral to driverless cars -- a technology Uber has been dabbling in to the dismay of some U.S. regulators -- and Google has had a significant head start. It's even rumoured to be getting into ride-sharing itself.

Uber has been stepping up its own internal mapping operation, including acquiring the mapping and search startup deCarta in 2015 and poaching another(opens in a new tab) Google Maps veteran, Brian McClendon. In 2016, the (opens in a new tab)Financial Times (opens in a new tab)reported(opens in a new tab) Uber was looking to pour $500 million into a global mapping effort.

Uber would not comment to Mashable regarding the cost of its mapping project.