Today, cars and cities are inextricably linked, and this will continue as the future is dominated by self-driving vehicles. But the tie-up means both will have to evolve in unison, say experts steeped in autonomous vehicles, smart city technologies and urban studies. To wit: self-driving vehicles must learn to navigate complex environments filled with pedestrians and other obstacles while cities become modified to accommodate them.

To enable future self-driving cars and today’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), automakers have been outfitting vehicles with a growing set of sensors as well as embedded cloud connectivity.