Driverless Car Service Testing Starts in Michigan

Self-driving company May Mobility has launched its second driverless service in the United States.

And the location is a familiar one, with the firm commencing driverless testing in Ann Arbor, the city of 120,000 in Michigan, where May Mobility is based.

The firm launched its first rider-only vehicles at a retirement community in Sun City, Arizona, nearly 11 months ago.

The new service would take in approximately two square miles of streets in Ann Arbor and is said to incorporate “significant complexity” of traffic, weather patterns and pedestrian density.

May Mobility’s converted autonomous Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS minivans use the company’s unique Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology, which uses AI to interpret data in real-time.

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The firm said it allows it to constantly evolve and adapt to potentially challenging scenarios, giving it an advantage in the so-called unpredictable ‘edge cases’ that have traditionally proven difficult for autonomous vehicles.

This continual development has allowed May Mobility to cope with new environments and increasingly complex operational design domains, and in Ann Arbor this is complemented by some hardware and user experience upgrades.

Related:Ride Sharing Service Adds More Self-Driving Vehicles

Passengers would now be able to get a view of the Sienna’s perception and decision-making ability on the route, while automated audio announcements and a keypad that includes Braille are also added.

Because there will be no safety monitor on board, remote human tele-operators would observe proceedings and should the need arise, provide answers to queries from passengers, who can contact them via the press of a button.

The milestone was hailed by founder and CEO Edwin Olson, who said: “Starting driver-out operations in our second city in under a year shows the scalability of our technology while expanding our capabilities to challenging weather, higher speeds and busy traffic.”

The company said it has 10 active deployments, which would increase to 13 by the end of the year, and recently launched a testing program at Peachtree Corners in Georgia geared towards driverless operation there by 2025.

As well as Sun City, other services have included a project to take people to medical appointments in Martinez, in the Bay Area, California, rides for vulnerable residents in Detroit and a public transit program in Minnesota for wheelchair users.

The company also been testing AVs in Japan with Softbank.

The company also recently reached a deal with Lyft to provide autonomous Siennas on the ride-hailing platform in Atlanta in 2025, with further collaborations planned.

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