GETTING THE GREEN LIGHT
NuTonomy cars to cruise Seaport streets
Self-driving cars will soon be out on the Seaport District’s busy roads, bridges, intersections and rotary — driving by the Children’s Museum and the convention center and other hotspots after months of testing in a more isolated industrial park.
“We feel we’re ready for a more difficult challenge,” said Matthew Wansley, general counsel of self-driving car company nuTonomy.
City officials have given the company the green light to test its two electric Renault Zoes throughout the Seaport and parts of Fort Point. The cars drove more than 230 miles on the public, but relatively secluded roads of the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park.
The expanded testing area includes new challenges for the cars and their software, including multiple lanes, bridges, traffic lights and a rotary. The test area also features local and tourist attractions, including the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, the Children’s Museum and the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion. Children’s Museum spokeswoman Jo-Anne Baxter said, “I’m sure the city of Boston has reviewed their proposal and they will adhere to all their safety precautions. The city wouldn’t have approved this testing if it wasn’t fairly vetted.”
Baxter added that seeing a self-driving car drive by, with its sensors and cameras on the roof, could be exciting for kids and help teach the kinds of science lessons the museum is trying to get across.
NuTonomy has been cleared to begin testing immediately, but must test in dry conditions. Wansley said drives in the new testing area could begin this week. Boston officials said they will have ongoing conversations with big institutions in the area, and are considering a public forum to help introduce the technology.
“Testing AVs in a complex world is critical,” Boston Transportation Commissioner Gina Fiandaca said. “It’s an important step towards shaping what the safe deployment of this technology will look like.”
Each autonomous car has two trained nuTonomy employees inside, one to monitor the car’s autonomous systems and another in the driver’s seat ready to take over if necessary. The cars are marked with the company logo and identified as autonomous vehicles. Wansley said the company has been driving around gathering mapping information for weeks, and said the vehicles are tested in computer simulations and off public streets before they drive on the roads.
“One of our standard tests as part of our off-road testing is we take a stroller and throw it in front of a car unpredictably,” Wansley said. “That’s the most basic safety question you have to overcome.”