The highly efficient way London taxi drivers plan destinations off the top of their heads has been used as part of a study into the future of AI route-mapping.
London taxi drivers are famous for their knowledge of more than 26,000 streets across the city.
Studies actually show that their brains are different to the average person. They have a larger posterior hippocampus region, which is the part of the brain linked to spatial memory and learning.
This ‘larger’ brain enables them to make sense of a highly complex city such as London and memorise hundreds of journeys and street names to navigate the city.
How exactly a London taxi driver reaches a destination was the subject of a recent study by researchers at the University of York, in collaboration with University College London and the Champalimaud Foundation, a private biomedical research foundation.
Dr Pablo Fernandez Velasco, British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the University of York, said: “London is incredibly complex, so planning...