Small Steps from Houston to Florida and Big Steps Abroad

Prelude: Thus far, and for the near future, this blog exists in some respect as my personal filing cabinet of topics I follow about autonomous vehicle (AV) business development, models of future service and arrangements, and legal and regulatory issues. At the moment I do not have the time and resources to cover and catalogue these issues as thoroughly and in ways I would like to. Not sure when that will change, but I do feel torn because I want to follow through on my ideas for better resources than currently exist.

That's my reason for why the following is a list and not an analysis or complete coverage of what follows. PLUS - This is not up-to-the-moment. 😦

Read below while considering the "cities-first" approach of an AV planning partnership from the Bloomberg Philanthropies AV Cities project and the National League of Cities. In an American governance framework where cities are often preempted from regulating their street use due to federal or state laws and regulations, it will be interesting to see the planning coming out of the project. So far, these two organizations say there has been a 30 percent jump in cities incorporating AV transportation into their planning.

There's more than a yellow rose in Texas

Texas is growing as far as AV pilot programs. There is Arlington, where the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers play, which has an AV shuttle operating on game days and around other events. But now:

Houston - An AV shuttle will be operating on campus at Texas Southern University (TSU) shuttle. "The small shuttles, called “university circulators,” will be limited to a mile-long campus pathway and will run at average speeds ranging from 8 to 12 miles per hour."

Frisco, a suburb of Dallas - According to a Dallas News article, Drive.ai will be testing and doing a six-month pilot of an AV ridehailing service that is planned to commence in July. "The service is made possible through a unique public-private partnership among California-based Drive.ai, the city of Frisco, the Denton County Transportation Authority and the private developments for Hall Park, The Star and Frisco Station. They are all part of the newly formed Frisco Transportation Management Association."

The Frisco AV shuttle will serve the general public at an office park near where the Arlington, TX, AV shuttle operates.

Commercial interruption

Florida

Two states with strong conservative tendencies have attracted plenty of AV testing, Arizona and now Florida. Florida, which is a little far from California and does not have that dry heat, has also rolled out the red carpet of no regulation for AV testing, pilots, and operations.

Gainseville, below the Florida Panhandle, but not at all on the water, is getting a cute AV shuttle route for a transit pilot. EasyMile will be supplying four shuttle AVs. Service is expected to begin for regular riders by the fall.

Tampa already has a shuttle and Babcock Ranch, a real estate development creation of a town, has a pilot that is expected to turn public. The town, Babcock Ranch, announced in 2016 as an eco-friendly soon-to-be-developed town the size of Manhattan, is being true to the word of the developers and an AV shuttle is on its streets being tested since January. Some houses are already built.

Viva Las Vegas

Coming this summer to the streets of Vegas to join the cute AV shuttle there will be Lyft AV ridehailing - BUT to run on fixed routes. This partnership of Lyft and Aptiv will build on the January pilot that provided rides during the CES conference in January 2018. Aptiv's Chief Technology Officer says, "Aptiv will work closely with the city to design future mobility solutions, which benefit public transportation and help with urban congestion challenges. The findings in the Las Vegas test run will be deployed in other cities across the world."

While in the Midwest:
FINALLY the University of Michigan MCity AV shuttle makes its debut, after over a year in the works. Ferrying students on North Campus is a cute shuttle vehicle from  Navya. Students, staff, and eligible guests are invited to ride for free. Hours are limited to daytime and the shuttle ceases service at 3 pm.

Watch the cool video from Ford about enabling people with visual disabilities to "see" or at least to experience the visual landscape.

Over there ... and turn north

When you're in Norway, you are definitely not in the US. While the federal government, over both the Obama and Trump Administrations, has tried to stay more out of the way on AVs and electric vehicles, Norway is taking a wholly different route. AV shuttles are planned and the country is actively encouraging more electric vehicle use.

The long-running AV shuttle operating in Sion, Switzerland is being taught to cross busy streets and communicate with traffic signals. There will also be testing for making its route more complex with roundabouts as well.

World Beyond US Going Fast for Driverless

Forget schlepping packages home

Norway now has driverless grocery deliver. Actually no human travel required because it is an online supermarket that is offering this service. This is a pilot project; regulatory changes will be needed to go beyond a pilot phase. The Norwegians are not setting their hopes only on the convenience of driverless grocery delivery, but on similar services for delivering restaurant food and picking up reycling. A guy is actually quoted as saying this will halve his family's food bill; does no one cook anymore?

In Brooklyn, there is driverless delivery, but that is with bikes and carts.

Driverless 2.0

South Korea will be testing what it calls second-generation driverless starting in early 2017. The vehicle is designed to operate on city streets as well as on other public roads. The pilot comes out of testing at a university in Seoul. 

Another piece of news that can be grouped under the heading of second-generation driverless is the advance of cheap LIDAR that has been developed in Germany. This new LIDAR package has no moving parts and costs less than $50. Test kits will be available in 2017 and production is supposed to start in 2018. The range of the LIDAR sensors is over 600 feet, so that approximately nine to 11 seconds of highway driving will be within the range of its "eyesight."

While in the US ...

While technology in the US is advancing thanks to innovation in Silicon Valley, Boston, Michigan, and elsewhere, the state of regulation and a legal framework for driverless is another matter. At this point, the situation is state versus state, and state versus federal government. The Washington Post reports that the NHTSA Administrator (for the Obama Administration), Mark Rosekind, has been criticizing California because its proposed driverless regulations would create the kind of fractured map of different state regulations that could severely hamper a national approach to regulation of driverless operations. 

The proposed framework in California includes mandatory reporting of driverless vehicle information requested in the proposed national guidelines. It seems to be the mandatory part that most bothers the NHTSA Administrator because the proposed NHTSA automated driving guidelines would be, if left unchanged, voluntary. Plus, being national in scope, one would not have to wonder if license for driverless operation will cease at a state border.

Our free press is also reporting everywhere on Intel's quest for companies to release data, which Intel products can store - for a price, of course - all in the interest of promoting faster driverless technology.