Coming to the city of Frisco in July, a public-private venture pairing up with a California-based outfit called Drive.ai, for something that's a little like shuttle service and a little like mass transit on a small scale.
Safety is a priority, Andrew Ng of Drive.ai said at the Frisco event. And that's why working with local authorities is so important. The company will be able to coordinate with first responders, help with public awareness campaigns and offer routes that add value. Local officials will also coordinate with the company when there are special events or road closures that affect traffic flow.
"Together we can make this thing as safe as possible," Ng said.
Artificial intelligence is great at maneuvering fixed routes but has difficulty recognizing hand signals from a construction worker directing traffic, Ng explained. That's where local leaders can step in and help.
Initial trips will have a human available in the driver's seat of the orange vehicles to take over at a moment's notice. The next stage puts the person in the passenger seat as a chaperone to answer passenger questions. The final stage lets the self-driving cars go solo with a remote operator available if needed.
"The challenge is going to be getting people to accept it," he said.
This Fortune story has a bit more about Drive.ai, which I'd never heard of before now, as well as a map of the rute this car will follow. It's not to scale, but given the description in the story my guess is that if it were more pedestrian-friendly, maybe more people would walk instead of needing a ride. Or maybe I'm just projecting. If the idea here is to make transit more feasible in these non-pedestrian-friendly places by solving the last-mile problem, that seems like a good thing. If not, we'll just have to see. For this arrangement, Drive.ai – more likely, the venture capitalists funding Drive.ai – are paying for everything. How this might work in the real world is another question I'd like to examine. We'll check back later in the year. The Trib and Texas Monthly have more.