Self-driving shuttle offers Denver a glimpse of its future — but will riders jump on board?
January 31, 2019
News
Jon Murray with Denver Post writes that Denver ‘is set to become the highest-profile demonstration of autonomous vehicle technology’. Below is an exerpt with a link to the full article.
The small shuttle is off-putting at first, with no steering wheel or gas pedal in sight as it ambles along two-lane streets at 12 mph.
But the driverless vehicle, which debuted to the public Tuesday as part of a free circulator route on the sparsely populated plains of far northeast Denver, may hold the key to the future of public transportation in the metro area.
Colorado hasn’t yet hosted public road testing of fully self-driving passenger cars of the kind under development by Uber, Tesla, Waymo (a sister company to Google) and other AV industry entrants. But the Regional Transportation District’s new shuttle marks the first time a U.S. transit agency has used an autonomous vehicle for a regular bus route.