Driverless cars
New technology could ease state’s traffic troubles
Florida eager to solve transit woes.
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 roadwarriors, 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 theway 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 carswould 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. Shewas 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.
“Itwas a driverless taxi andmy young nephew turned tome and said, ‘I may never drive a car inmy lifetime,’ ” Rosen Gonzalez said. “It hit me that this technologywill change the waywe live and thewaywe get frompoint A to point B.
“We are nowa stay-at-home culture. If someone asks me to come fromMiami Beach to Coral Gables for dinner, I’ll probably say no way, that’s an hour inmy 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 otherways to break through the congestion that’s paralyzing our cities and quality of life.”
In Florida, theUniversity 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. TheNaviGATOR, a hybrid Toyota Highlander, is already a starAV operated by UF’s Center for IntelligentMachines 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.
“Ifwe can solve it in Miami, then that becomes an export industry that applies to every city in theworld,” co-founder Salim Ismail told theHerald.
Olli, a self-driving 12-passenger minibus powered by IBM’sWatson supercomputer, could soon hit the road in Miami-Dade for testing in collaboration with Florida InternationalUniversity.
The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority has offered access to its roads and partnered with FDOT and theUniversity of South Florida’s Automated Vehicle Institute to test AV applications. Babcock Ranch, northeast of FortMyers, 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 andweather-beaten roads present obstacles for computer-driven vehicles.
“Deployment is more easily done in environments where theweather iswarm and sunny and the road infrastructure is in good shape.”
Miami is desperate for driverless cars because it is home to some of theworld’sworst 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.