Driverless cars are being tested on Melbourne roads as industry experts say the future of transport is closer than people might realise.
Monali Shah, director of intelligent transport at HERE, says the industry is moving at a rapid pace as car makers ramp up production.
"That's a new dynamic too, how quickly things are moving," she told AAP on Sunday.
Cars that talk to each other and the road using next generation wifi technology will be mass produced in 2017, while driverless shuttle buses are already available in the market.
Ms Shah is in Melbourne for the 23rd World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, which hosted a demonstration of driverless cars and other intelligent driving technology in Albert Park on Sunday.
She said Australians didn't need to wait for automated vehicles to start benefiting from the available technology.
The Tasmanian government is using HERE GPS data to track traffic and measure the performance of new road projects.
"They can actually use this kind of data to understand where are the problem areas, and where should we be investing in road improvement projects," Ms Shah said.
The level of complexity involved in driverless transport has seen usually competitive car companies come together to develop some industry standards for devices.
"Competing companies are coming together because they see that that's what it's going to take," Ms Shah said.
"We're bringing in data from all kinds of different sources, whether it's cars, mobile devices, transportation agencies, and putting them all together into this system that can link people or places."
The Albert Park test event included Australia's first locally designed self-driving car system, which Bosch put into the body of a Tesla car.
It also featured a driverless shuttle bus and a Siemens car that uses wifi to talk to other cars to prevent crashes and share information.
Ms Shah said these advancements were key to making cities more liveable.
"There's a lot of cities that are experiencing tremendous growth and we can't just keep expanding all the roads everywhere, so we have to find ways to use technology," she said.
