People looking for a ride in downtown Arlington or around UTA can now request a self-driving shuttle.
Arlington doesn’t have a traditional mass transit system. Instead of running buses, the city partners with Via, a company that allows people to request a ride on a minibus. In January, Via expanded to cover the entire city.
Before, all Via buses had human drivers. Now, using the Via app, people looking for rides in downtown Arlington can request an autonomous vehicle.
The program is called Arlington RAPID. At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said downtown is a perfect place to test this technology.
"Even during the pandemic, we see the growth that is happening, and we're very excited about what is happening here in downtown," he said.
Each vehicle has a living, breathing attendant who keeps an eye on things and helps customers, while the vehicle itself does the driving.
This is Arlington’s third driverless vehicle program. From 2017 to 2018, the city offered an off-street autonomous shuttle in its Entertainment District. From 2018 to 2019, the city operated an on-street driverless vehicle program in the same area.
Arlington got $1.7 million from the Federal Transit Administration to fund Arlington RAPID, which is expected to run through March 2022.
The five driverless vehicles come from May Mobility. At the press conference, the company’s CEO, Edwin Olson, said his goal is to develop a reliable transportation service for the city — and identify any bugs in the system.
“By deploying our vehicles here, we’re not only going to learn about Arlington and your people, but be able to figure out what technology challenges there might be that we might be able to improve over time,” he said.
Researchers at UTA will be learning from the project as well. They plan to assess riders’ perceptions of the driverless service before and after the project, and figure out ways to get more people to use it.
UTA students can ride the driverless shuttle for free. Otherwise, Via’s standard $3 to $5 fares apply.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you.
