AV Shuttles in the Outback and US; MADD Partners

Yes, I will admit that to a native New Yorker, anything beyond Ohio, let alone Chicago, seems like the outback, but that is where AVs are taking hold first. By the way, I am simply being self-aware here and not proud of this mindset as I work with many lovely people across the US who see far prettier landscapes than I do everyday and live outside of the DC and NY bubbles.

Plus, we already have 12 mph vehicles in NYC; that's called regular traffic.

Australia

Perth has had a driverless shuttle for over a year and the Darwin Airport just had its own AV shuttle demo to ferry folks on airport grounds. This was the "EZ10 shuttle from Transdev and Easymile." However, this was only a two-day demonstration last week to show the wonders of new transportation technology and to get the conversation started.

Meanwhile, a suburb in Queensland, Australia, is planning for a totally AV system in a private area. Springfield - not the one in Illinois or Massachusetts - is a suburb of Ipswich and this week it is hosting an EasyMile AV shuttle demo.

Minneapolis wants another taste

Now that Minnesota had its first taste with an AV shuttle, this during the winter in downtown Minneapolis during Super Bowl week, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) is moving on demos elsewhere in its biggest city. ""I've ridden on the vehicle, and it feels a bit like the people-mover at the airport that runs between terminals," says [Hennepin] county transit director John Doan."

The Hennepin County Board just approved the idea for a demo in another location. That location is the Greenway, which advocates are touting as part of a route for another light rail line. The Greenway is a six-mile bike and pedestrian trail. "Driverless rides will be offered over a weekend in April. They'll take place along a 2-3 block stretch." Rides will be fare free.

FYI: If you go out to Minneapolis to ride an AV shuttle, take the time to go have pancakes at Mickey's Diner in St. Paul. The place is tiny, so get there early or on the very late side.

One more FYI: I know John Doan and he heads up Mobility 4 All, which is advocating for accessible AVs for people with disabilities. Mobility 4 All is a partner in the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets.

Even the Marines

A Marine Corps air station in California is planning for AV routes, as in real service, on a sprawling base in Miramar, CA. "Two routes on the air station, a “rural” and “urban” route, will provide opportunities for stakeholders to initiate autonomous vehicle testing and development projects. The rural route is located on East Miramar where autonomous vehicle technology testing began early February 2018."

The AVs will be vans and they will also be part of a connected vehicle project.

Buffalo university buys a shuttle

The state university of New York campus at Buffalo has purchased an Olli with help from the NYS DOT and the NYS Energy and Research Development Authority. The Olli, a product of Local Motors, will be used on campus for first-mile/last-mile service to and from public transit. Service is not set to begin until at least the end of April.

Public good case for AVs

MADD and Velodyne Lidar have entered into a partnership to do something unspecified for the cause of getting humans away from the steering wheel.

To fulfill this vision, Velodyne and MADD have adopted the shared mission of promoting and advancing Autonomous Vehicle technology with the singular goal of getting you and your loved ones home – safely. The Designated Driver of the future is Velodyne LiDAR. Velodyne LiDAR will never be drunk, drugged, distracted, or even drowsy.

Following the press release, I have not seen anything more detailed.

MADD is an easy partner because unlike advocacy groups for people with disabilities, MADD's push to transport drunk and tipsy people - who seem to greatly overestimate their ability to drive under the influence of alcohol (or other substances) - without having them drive does not require any accessible equipment or interfaces.

And if I sound snarky, I do not mean to. I have known a few people who have been killed in car crashes and I have seen a dear friend try to rebuild her life after her son's death. My father's best friend was killed by a drunk driver. Already two young adults from my daughter's high school class have been killed on US roads. I applaud MADD for encouraging AV technology.

Velodyne is supplying lidar technology to Ford, Volvo, Baidu, Mercedes and other companies, according to the Velodyne Lidar homepage. MADD is a partner in the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets.

Transit-Like and Lite - Ford, Olli

Elaine Chao, the US Secretary of Transportation, is saying exactly what other DOT staff and the private sector are saying, that people with disabilities and older adults are going to be big winners with autonomous vehicles (AVs) because it won't matter if they are unable to drive. Hooray for these good intentions, but until now, no one was talking about accessibility and the work to get there. I'm including Ford's big announcement yesterday in this post because shared use, transit, and accessibility go hand in hand to provide independence for those with transportation challenges.

Transportation equity advances

The new Olli autonomous shuttle is as much an achievement as the process that led to the universal design of this AV and its interfaces - designed with and for people with disabilities as much as for the general public. Not only were people with disabilities invited in, listened to, and asked questions, but even more amazing is that the Olli team designed for accessibility for a range of different types of disabilities. Yes! People who use wheelchairs were included, but so were people with visual disabilities and more.

Kudos to Local Motors, the company that manufactures the Olli, for taking the time to find out what people need and want and feels comfortable and actively engaging with people with disabilities, who, for the most part, continue to suffer from terrible transportation challenges even with our best transit systems. (I may be involved with this field professionally, but it was a lesson when I needed to use the DC Metro elevators recently. Not easy to experience a normal trip even when elevators are working, but that is impossible most of the time due to constant elevator breakdowns and maintenance work. It's like SafeTrack all the time for anyone who is unable to use the escalators.)

Ford finds cities to be wonderful towns - where people don't want to drive

It's as if the executives of the Ford Motor Company watched this classic movie snippet, which is very multimodal, by the way, and got religion - the religion of transit, shared use, and mobility as a service (MaaS), and decided to go right for it. They've hung up the 1950s ethos of Detroit and gotten the 2018 bug of Brooklyn, Portland, and San Francisco.

In an amazing display of Ford's commitment to its new philosophy, the company announced yesterday that it is (1) buying - acquiring - TransLoc, a microtransit platform and transit routing software company, which builds upon the acquisition and expansion of Chariot into more cities; (2) acquiring Autonomic (which sounds like a cross between auto technology and off-the-shelf medicine), which can simply be described as a cloud-based MaaS platform; and (3) getting heavily into shared-use modes, MaaS, and non-emergency medical transportation. It's as if Ford is saying it will get into and replace all transit and shared-use modes except for the urban rail systems.

There's more: Because this is corporate America, a reorganization goes along with the news. Seems like Ford's Smart Mobility program is greatly expanding to include a mobility business group, and to integrate the almost-within-reach dream of AVs.

Now that's a big day for AVs. Maybe Ford will acquire Local Motors, the Olli company. Ford seems to be on a buying spree.

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.

Happy New Year - and Driverless Testing

Boston

A successful hometown startup, nuTonomy, operating driverless vehicles in Singapore, has come back to Beantown to do driverless testing in a restricted area. Nothing unusual except that this is new for Boston and that its neighbor, Cambridge, spawned nuTonomy at MIT. Testing began this week.

Testing will be at low speeds and only in good weather, just like all Boston driving. Ha ha! Go to the Globe article and see a short unimpressive video of the initial spin.

Las Vegas

Sometime in 2017 this sin city, whether downtown, on the Strip, or both, will have a driverless shuttle. Two possibilities are Olli from Local Motors and NAVLY from Keolis. 

Video below is Nvidia's latest, this time with music and an attempt to generate excitement outside of nerd community.

Pennsylvania

Since its heyday with Philadelphia as the nation's capital and hosting the Continental Congress as well as the convention that produced the US Constitution, perhaps due to closed windows and doors in terrible summer heat (like hot yoga meets intellectual debate), the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has not been an urban leader (talking general reputation here), but it is fighting hard to keep Pittsburgh's prominent position in the race for driverless development, testing, and perhaps a real rollout - as opposed to what is essentially a PR pilot by Uber.

Actual news: Pennsylvania through its transportation agency, PennDOT, is throwing its hat into the USDOT ring to get funding for a driverless proving ground designation. Really no idea why it can't just be called a testing ground. This news is being reported everywhere.

Link to USDOT intent to designate proving grounds.

Michigan - Eastern time zone, but Midwest in nature

My brain is asking: Embarrassed by Trump, seeing marketing possibilities, needing highly-educated talent or all of the above? Ford canceled its plans for a plant in Mexico and will be staying more grounded in its ancestral homeland of Michigan, where it is now a progressive mobility company instead of pusher of car in every driveway - at least while it considers its transformation to be profitable. Ford will be producing its hybrid and driverless vehicles in its home state, to the happy applause of unions and Trump, making for interesting bedfellows. Yes, this news is everywhere; tons of articles if you want to spend ten more minutes reading.

Michigan has also applied to host a USDOT-approved proving ground, which will exist whether or not the national Department of Transportation designates it as such. I suspect the chances are excellent, however. A new administration in DC will want to reward those states that gave the Electoral College to Trump despite the popular vote for Hillary Clinton. Just a guess.

Balancing hobbies

So nice to take time off, but driverless never sleeps and to avoid Lucy-and-Ethel mind crushing mental experience of shoving metaphorical or actual chocolates in my mouth as they burst forth down the assembly line, I will be concentrating on driverless trends and what interests me. There's plenty of others speculating - 70 percent of driverless news - or reporting absolutely everything. Plus, I am also committed to finishing my 108 Breads project this year, which will require effort and assistance of friends who will serve as tasting committee for a significant challenge I have given myself for the last 14 or so breads. Project has achieved initial goals of (a) being busy as transitioned to empty nest and (b) learning about and experimenting with different doughs, pre-doughs, and bread making approaches. The empty nest is the new adolescence.

There's also a sudden burst of energy to do my artwork of paintings, collage, and book, so driverless has to fit in, but not obliterate, actual creative production ongoing in my small walk-in closet a/k/a art studio (sometimes using a sink elsewhere when water becomes necessary).

On the Edges of Driverless Development

This video seems a bit like technology-meets-Reading-Rainbow in its approach, but it does show possibilities for the future in travel and in sitting at home watching your drone have a wonderful day outside. Or the drone can check traffic up ahead or how long the line is outside your favorite restaurant or whether the parking lot up ahead is full.

The car comes with a drone.

The 3D-printed car has not been made, but Local Motors is in exactly that business, with work on 3D-printed driverless vehicles.

Beware: The video is part of a public relations effort.

Korean initiative has sensors seeing colors

The sensors for driverless vehicles that are being developed in Korea do not only see colors - as in traffic signals - they communicate with sensors on roads. Driverless meets CV. The CV or connected vehicle and road sensors give each driverless vehicle information from beyond its own little moving structure. Working on this are a mobile phone carrier, SK Telecom and Seoul National University (SNU) Intelligent Vehicle IT Research Center.

Can't Resist Cute

This Best Mile video does a nice job of explaining the convenience and behind-the-scenes rationales of driverless public transport. You will find yourself in a world where publicly-available transit is best. And the video is cute, which kept me watching.

Olli and Watson: a beautiful friendship and restaurant recommendations

ZDNet came out with a wonderful article about the role of Watson in Local Motors' Olli shuttle vehicle. Watson is a now-mature creation of IBM (International Business Machines) that started life with a win over humans on the game show Jeopardy. It went on to ace the MCATs (medical equivalent of the SATs in the US) and have a flourishing career in industry. Learned and up to date, Watson is helping out Olli, its autonomous vehicle pal from Local Motors, to humanize the machine/person interactions in driverless shuttles.

So Watson will greet passengers, answer questions about restaurants in the area, and help with directions. Watson has also been trained to understand a diversity of accents and to calm down cranky passengers. It will call an off-site supervisor if anger management is necessary. 

Add sensors and voila ...

Plus, all this self-driving stuff is super easy because college students are taking average cars and turning them into driverless ones. This is at an Arizona program, but soon it could be someone's garage. Perhaps a slight exaggeration.

Human vs. Machine - No Contest

In terms of reaction time, when quick thinking or braking is necessary, machines - including driverless vehicles - are way ahead of humans. What we require seconds for, to assess a situation and react, a driverless vehicle can currently do in tenths of a second. Think what it takes to barrel to a stop when traveling at 80 miles an hour.

This article explains the details in terms of safety of driverless versus human drivers.

And that driverless vehicle you eventually ride in might be a 3D printed vehicle., such as the one Local Motors is showing around. Ditto for the house you live in. More and more companies are getting in this game as well. A new term: Additive manufacturing. There's no waste in this polymer world. 

We might not have cars anymore, but you could use the garage for a giant 3D printer. That's not even a joke.

All About Partnerships

Who is dancing with whom?
University of Michigan to open driverless 32-acre testing grounds - fake city and suburban streets - this month, by late July. Consortium of car companies and technology companies involved. Not Google, not Uber.

By the way, at least one of the driverless cars heading to Michigan will be a 3D-printed vehicle from Local Motors. The company is also pairing up with other universities and companies.

General Motors and the University of North Carolina are teaming up to reduce the cost and improve the performance of driverless computer technology. The National Science Foundation will also be contributing. 

Predictions abound
I do not waste my time on the numerous predictions about the changes that driverless vehicles will bring or how many people will ride in them. This study caught my eye for its prediction that electric driverless taxis will result in a 90 percent reduction in automotive emissions.

And where are those Google cars? Not only in Mountain View, CA, and its environs. Google announced this week that its driverless cars are hitting the streets of Austin, TX. Perhaps a liberal, tech-friendly city in the de-regulated environment of the Lonestar state and is what attracted Google.