Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Florida gears up for driverless cars
New technology could ease state’s traffic troubles
The driverless-car revolution is coming to Manhattan streets in early 2018. Trials are running in Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Boston and San Francisco. But the ride of the future is not yet on the calendar for Miami, a city that needs autonomous vehicles more than any other to render its notoriously bad drivers obsolete.
Hang in there, Miami road warriors, because high-tech, self-driving cars are on the way, and Florida is beckoning with the country’s least restrictive laws regulating their operation.
“Florida is in position to be an early deployment state,” said state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, a champion of the technology that will be highlighted at the annual Autonomous Vehicle Summit starting Tuesday in Tampa. “My goal is to have multiple rollouts in the next 24 months. It’s going to change the way we think about mobility and reshape the conversation about transportation.”
U.S. motorists drove a record 3.2 trillion miles last year, according to the Federal Highway Administration, and many of them hated every minute of it.
But the advent of driverless cars is right around the corner, with 33 companies vying at various proving grounds to hone software and sensors to have them ready for consumers within the next 15 years.
The density and chaos of Miami Beach plus local drivers’ addiction to their cars would make it an ideal urban petri dish for a pilot program. Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez tried to lure an Uber program to the city last year and vows to try again. She was inspired during a visit to Pittsburgh when she noticed a white car with a large contraption on its roof pull up next to her at a stoplight.
“It was a driverless taxi and my young nephew turned to me and said, ‘I may never drive a car in my lifetime,’ ” Rosen Gonzalez said. “It hit me that this technology will change the way we live and the way we get from point A to point B.
“We are now a stay-at-home culture. If someone asks me to come from Miami Beach to Coral Gables for dinner, I’ll probably say no way, that’s an hour in my car. Going anywhere in South Florida eats up so much of our time and energy. I’m not hopeful about public transit here. We’ve got to find other ways to break through the congestion that’s paralyzing our cities and quality of life.”
In Florida, the University of Florida’s Transportation Institute, the Florida Department of Transportation and the city of Gainesville are creating a test network on campus and surrounding highways. The NaviGATOR, a hybrid Toyota Highlander, is already a star AV operated by UF’s Center for Intelligent Machines and Robots.
The Miami-based nonprofit foundation Fastrack Institute, which aims its brain power at solving urban problems, is in the midst of a 16-week program designed to address MiamiDade’s transportation ills.
“If we can solve it in Miami, then that becomes an export industry that applies to every city in the world,” co-founder Salim Ismail told the Herald.
Olli, a self-driving 12-passenger minibus powered by IBM’s Watson supercomputer, could soon hit the road in Miami-Dade for testing in collaboration with Florida International University.
The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority has offered access to its roads and partnered with FDOT and the University of South Florida’s Automated Vehicle Institute to test AV applications. Babcock Ranch, northeast of Fort Myers, is being planned as a greenfield community utilizing electric AVs.
“One thing Florida has going for it is its weather,” Erlich said, pointing out that snow and weather-beaten roads present obstacles for computer-driven vehicles.
“Deployment is more easily done in environments where the weather is warm and sunny and the road infrastructure is in good shape.”
Miami is desperate for driverless cars because it is home to some of the world’s worst human drivers. We’re overloaded with tourists, people who drive according to the customs of their native countries, and elderly drivers.
Unfamiliarity with our roads and laws exacerbates hostility already heightened by the heat and humidity, which is cruelly complicated by endless construction projects and horrid urban planning. The only thing good about being trapped in your car on I-95 or Brickell Avenue is that no one can hear you scream.