Inferring Good User Pickup Locations From Detected Walking Paths

A vehicle configured to operate in an autonomous driving mode, the vehicle comprising:

• a perception system including one or more sensors, the one or more sensors being configured to receive sensor data associated with objects in an external environment of the vehicle;
• a driving system including a steering subsystem, an acceleration subsystem and a deceleration subsystem to control driving of the vehicle;
• a positioning system configured to determine a current position of the vehicle;
• and
• a control system including one or more processors, the control system operatively coupled to the driving system, the perception system and the positioning system, the control system being configured to:
• retrieve digital map information for a location of interest associated with a pickup or a drop-off for a rider, the digital map information including road segment data;
• obtain the sensor data associated with the objects in the external environment of the vehicle;
• analyze the obtained sensor data to classify whether the objects in the external environment include one or more pedestrian objects;
• generate a heatmap of pedestrian walking paths based on trajectory information for objects classified as pedestrian objects;
• compare the digital map information for the location of interest to the heatmap of pedestrian walking paths to identify at least one location to perform the pickup or the drop-off for the rider;
• and
• perform an action upon identifying the at least one location to perform the pickup or the drop-off for the rider.

A computing system, comprising:

• memory configured to store digital map information for a location of interest and sensor data obtained from at least one vehicle for the location of interest, the digital map information including road segment data, and the sensor data including a set of detected objects;
• and
• one or more processors operatively coupled to the memory, the one or more processors being configured to:
• analyze the obtained sensor data to classify whether the set of detected objects includes one or more pedestrian objects;
• generate a heatmap of pedestrian walking paths based on trajectory information for objects classified as pedestrian objects;
• compare the digital map information for the location of interest to the heatmap of pedestrian walking paths to identify at least one location to perform a pickup or a drop-off for a rider;
• and
• provide at least one of the heatmap of pedestrian walking paths or the at least one location to one or more vehicles of a fleet of vehicles configured to operate in an autonomous driving mode.