ANN ARBOR, MI –Ann Arbor residents will soon be able to be shuttled by self-driving vehicles.
A2GO — a partnership between May Mobility, MCity and Ann Arbor SPARK, among other groups — will be launching an autonomous vehicle shuttle service available to the public on Monday, Oct. 11.
The free service will be available to move people between Kerrytown, downtown Ann Arbor and the Central and South campuses of University of Michigan and will be offered Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Allison Hegarty, May Mobility’s customer success manager for the Ann Arbor deployment, said the service is geared toward students and commuters.
“It will be interesting to see what those peak times will be in Ann Arbor,” Hegarty said.
May Mobility has similar deployments in Grand Rapids; Indianapolis, Indiana; Arlington, Texas; and Hiroshima, Japan. The service was also previously available in Detroit but was disbanded as a result of the pandemic.
There will be four May Mobility vehicles in rotation at any one time, with a wheelchair-accessible vehicle available upon request.
Although the vehicles are autonomous, each car does have an operator behind the wheel to monitor the ride and to step in if necessary, such as in the case of inclement weather.
“We absolutely are hoping to be fully autonomous…when that will come, I’m not sure,” Hegarty said.
The cars are each fitted with seven cameras, five radars and five lidars, which are similar to radar but work with lasers, according to Amanda Kline, a field autonomy engineer with May Mobility.
“It all starts with all of our sensors,” Kline said.
Using these sensors, the cars take in data to identify objects, such as pedestrians or other vehicles, and to understand typical behaviors of those objects. The car will then do “some imagining into the future” to decide how it will respond to outside stimuli, Kline said.
The cars are “nervous” drivers, according to Kline, meaning they keep safety as the top priority. Sometimes they make choices “a little different than what a human will do, but always still safe,” she added.
“Our shuttles always keep safety in mind first,” Kline said.
The shuttle is not door-to-door, but is rather corner-to-corner, relying on around 20 different stops throughout the service area.
To use the shuttle, area residents can download the May Mobility phone app, which is also free, and use it to select their desired location. The app will then give walking directions to the closest stop.
May Mobility is headquartered in Ann Arbor.
“They’re super excited to have a site in our backyard,” Kline said of its employees.
The shuttle will launch for the public on Oct. 11 and be available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.
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