Demos, Pilots, Airports, and Street Sweepers

Autonomous Vehicle Trip to Big 10 and Beyond the Midwest 

Wisconsin - AV shuttle to operate on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison next week on Apr. 24 and 25. Wisconsin is one of 10 autonomous vehicles testing grounds. And by "Wisconsin" I mean the big 10 school. There is lots of AV and connected vehicle technology development and testing happening there.

Michigan - The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor will have an AV shuttle in operation by the end of April. It will be free for students, faculty, and staff to ride on a 3/4 mile route on North Campus. Finally, because this AV shuttle pilot has been in the works forever, or at least since October 2017.

Minnesota - Minneapolis is about to host its second AV demo. The first was a pilot that took place before and during the Super Bowl festivities early this year. The second will be a weekend AV shuttle open to the public on the Midtown Greenway. Not set in stone, but it looks like the shuttle will operate on Apr. 27-29. The public will be permitted to ride that Sunday, Apr. 29.

Further south and then west ...

Texas - Officials in Houston are considering AV buses. The city hosts an AV testing ground. From a press report, the idea is that a first step would be a three-month AV shuttle pilot "on the campus of Texas Southern University."

Washington - Bellevue officials are in talks with companies to do the usual downtown AV shuttle pilot thing and to "test self-driving van pools to bring commuters into the city." (The city is Seattle, just for all of you native New Yorkers who know where "the city" is.) Turns out, the Seattle-area transit agency has a long-standing large vanpool program, so the program's administrative structure is already in place. Various, well-funded, players are reportedly ready to join in this sandbox. There does seem to be acknowledgement that fully AV vanpools are quite different than a slow speed AV shuttle that operates on a fixed route.

Over in Asia

Japan - 15-passenger AV buses - really shuttle size - in operation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which is still being cleaned up after the 2011 tsunami and earthquake caused a complete breakdown at the plant. By the way, the disaster was found to have been foreseeable because the plant operator "had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans." That kind of disaster shows why we need safety advocates.

China - An AV container truck at a Chinese port is in operation. The truck is "expected to help port terminals and logistics companies to improve efficiency and save labour cost by more than 50%.
Compared to the traditional self-driving vehicles, the Westwell vehicle can quickly adapt to the port environment, make decisions and alternate controls."

China - The country has also instituted nationwide regulations  for AVs. According to FastCompany:

1. All cars must first be tested in non-public zones.
2. Road tests can only be on designated streets.
3. A qualified driver must always be in the driver’s seat, ready to take over control.

China - Shanghai has already begun trying out automated street cleaner vehicles. They will work quietly and neatly in the middle of the night to keep the streets swept and tidy.

One airport and then beyond

France - Charles DeGaulle Airport outside of Paris is the site of an AV pilot, but the plan is to expand to other airports operated by Groupe ADP, which operates 34 international airports. Don't head to Paris just for this. The AV shuttle, which will last until this July, will only be "offering free rides to passengers with limited mobility."

NOT A random AV tidbit

University of Florida - a graduate student is working on technology that will assist people with visual disabilities to navigate the use of AVs. For a person who is visually impaired, being a few feet away or half a block away from one's destination or vehicle location can be a complete barrier to travel.

Ooh La La Taxis, Shuttles, and Hyperloop

Navya will be starting an autonomous vehicle taxi service next spring, that's the second quarter of 2018. So, flowers, buds on trees, and a taxi sans driver - but only in Paris - so far. Also nice is that the taxi will be EV as well as AV (electric vehicle, autonomous vehicle for you non-acronym lovers). For now, Navya merely offers a boring, corporate-styled video.

Okay, yes, I can't resist the temptation to include the boring video.

More taxi-like news

We have advanced beyond "what's good for GM is good for America" to the point where GM is going after the business of people completely car-free or at least car-lite with its Maven ridehailing service. Maven is now expanding to more cities, operating in Baltimore, DC, Boston, and Los Angeles, among others, bringing the total to eight.

GM's Maven is not yet autonomous, but it represents GM's foray into a different business model in preparation for an AV world that may not mirror the old model of a car - or two or three - in every driveway.

Off topic: Where maven comes from

Maven, by the way, is from Yiddish and means expert. In Yiddish, the word maven often carries a negative connotation, as in "What are you, a maven?" My parents always talked about the men who gossiped on the street corner in this way - people who talked, thought they were experts, but did not contribute.

However, the word has taken on a more sunny, positive disposition in American English.

2018 in Tennessee

Knoxville, TN, may soon see an AV shuttle from Local Motors. Yes, Olli will be manufactured in Knox County and an Olli AV shuttle, to be 90 percent 3D printed, will likely begin ferrying Knoxville passengers in 2019 - which is like seven years from now in AV time. (My family in materials science generally poo poo's the 3D printing thing, but Local Motors seems to be making this work, or, at least, is persistent in pursuing it.)

Hyperloop actually progressing - and being built

Despite my skepticism, two distinct and quite separate hyperloop projects have official approval to begin building - with private dollars. The first will go from Baltimore to DC and the second will be in suburban metro Denver and into the city.

What is hyperloop? In case you do not follow this stuff, wikipedia has a good page that explains pretty much everything.

Watch out MARC train, there will be a much faster way to go from Baltimore to DC - or to Baltimore for a fantastic Italian sub at Isabella's. (I say that as a native New Yorker.) Virgin Hyperloop One, an Elon Musk/Richard Branson company (renamed from Hyperloop One with the Branson investment) could be bringing Musk's vision of hyperloop pods traveling all the way from DC to NYC in less than 30 minutes. Maryland's governor has given approval to a chunk of the Baltimore to DC segment. (I hope there will be a stop at BWI Airport.)

"Hogan [Maryland's governor] administration officials said [in mid-October] the state has issued a conditional utility permit to let Musk’s tunneling firm, The Boring Co., dig a 10.3-mile tunnel beneath the state-owned portion of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, between the Baltimore city line and Maryland 175 in Hanover. ... More than two-thirds of the 35-mile Baltimore Washington Parkway is owned by the federal government, which as of Thursday had not publicly granted permission for the hyperloop system."

The Colorado project will be built by Arrivo, which is headed by a former Elon Musk employee at SpaceX and a co-founder of Hyperloop One. This will be "a public-private partnership with Colorado’s Department of Transportation and E-470 Public Highway Authority." I can tell you personally that there is both excitement and concern about hyperloop in the growing suburbs around Denver. The Arrivo hyperloop version goes slower than the Musk version, at about 160 mph instead of at several hundred miles per hour, which has not yet been achieved.

Bay State Legislation, International, and Chutzpah from Musk

A Massachusetts legislator seeks to tie driverless operation on its roads to zero-emission requirements and higher per-mile fees for empty roving vehicles. Oh and the legislation would replace the gas tax for these vehicles with a VMT (vehicle miles traveled) fee of 2.5 cents for every mile traveled, empty or full. 

In October 2016, an executive order in the Bay State was issued that encourages partnerships involving automated vehicles, giving usual utterance about safety, and pointing out that Boston - I assume meaning Cambridge as well - is the expected center of driverless activity.

A Pittsburgh-area company is trying to grow in a market niche of finding bugs in self-driving software code. It's a nice niche and a good place to be, right near Uber and Carnegie Melon.

International: Far and wide 

At the Christ Church airport in New Zealand, there is a driverless shuttle being tested and it's basically ready to transport airport travelers. The shuttle vehicle is a 15-person, French-made Navya. 

Here's a link to a boring, but brief, video of Paris Easy Mile bus in operation, with at least one passenger, in a very separated lane. Don't be shy, scroll down until you get to the rectangular box.

From the drink and ride desk

An Irish legislator believes that driverless vehicles will mean economic revitalization for rural areas, particularly for rural pubs. No one will worry about or avoid drinking at a pub due to concerns about driving.

Can't ignore Musk - nice on the chutzpah

While lots of testing and pilots are happening or being planned; while governors and legislators salivate and invite business and partner with universities; while federal money and interest drips into the driverless coffee pot - Elon Musk at Tesla and his partnership with Nvidia seems close to bearing big, maybe gigantic, fruit in three to six months with the rollout of "fully self-driving mode." It will go where your calendar says you should be, or default to taking you home if it does not receive a destination.

The Musk model seems to perpetuate the current system of the single-occupancy-vehicle, business as usual, just with no hands on the wheel. I would be happy to be proven wrong.

No Break From Driverless Developments

A few days off to enjoy real-life family and events. A little less attention paid to driverless while immersed in much home baking of holiday and rye breads for friends and family. (Everyone needs a source of good bread, but truly here's nothing like homemade. Not that I am the best baker, but a fresh homemade bread has amazing taste and is pure comfort food. Plus, naturally leavened bread is far healthier than breads made with commercial yeast. Rant over.)

The result? I fell woefully behind - for just a few days - on driverless news. Really, driverless news should not come out if I am not paying attention.

Acquisitions and money flowing

German-based Infineon acquires Innoluce BV, a Dutch producer of miniature, and potentially a very cheap, lidar technology. Infineon us a chip manufacturer. Here's a Business Insider article about the acquisition, which also explains well the differences in production costs.

A French driverless shuttle startup, Navya, is receiving a funding boost from, among others, Keolis, a large international transportation and transit company. The boost is to the tune of $34 million, with a $224 million valuation that demonstrates the current groupthink about Navya.

MIT-spawned Optimus Ride is also receiving an infusion of about $5 million. No specifics on the emerging technology that Optimus is incubating, but there is deep autonomous vehicle experience on the staff of the Boston startup.

Technology advance

The University of California at Riverside (UC Riverside) has created a new type of navigation technology. The technology does not rely on GPS, which does not work well in certain settings (such as mountain valleys), and instead relies on existing signals, such as cellular networks and wifi.

Finally on the street

After announcements and plans, finally, finally, driverless cars have appeared on the streets of Milton Keynes, a city in England. They are slow - at 5 mph - and cute and there. Australia, site of the current ITS World Congress conference, has hosted an actual driverless car on its roads as well. Bosch is the producer of the driverless system used on that car.

Calif. Office Park Gets No-Hands Shuttle

Bishop Ranch is an affluent and progressive office park in Contra Costa county, California. BR already promotes use of non-SOV (single occupancy vehicle) modes of  transit, carpooling, biking, etc. It goes further by providing information, incentives, and connections for utilizing non-SOV modes.

Now BR will be the first office park in the nation with driverless shuttles that will ferry people to transit and shared-use connections - a driverless feeder service that will travel at low speeds. Service will begin next summer in 2016. EasyMile driverless vehicles, shown above, will be the provider. EasyMile, a French company, has already been involved with pilot projects in Europe, including the CityMobil2 program in Switzerland.

California clearly in the lead
This is the second private driverless shuttle service that is scheduled to begin in California. The other was announced recently for the campus of Santa Clara University. 

Video of driverless transit

Not sure I agree with some of the opinions expressed, but this video of a small transit vehicle - entirely driverless and without even a steering wheel - is pretty cool. Taking place in France, but similar trials are happening in other European locations.

I don't agree that we'll be driving to car parks to pick up the driverless vehicle. With the on-demand transit choices in development and operating already, and with complete streets, I think, in metropolitan areas at least, we are close to giving up the individually-owned vehicle.