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Autonomous Vehicles Back On The Road In G.R.

picture of May Mobility Shuttle
May Mobility

Earlier this week, the City of Grand Rapids and May Mobility relaunched their autonomous vehicle shuttle service.  Service stopped in March due to the COVID 19 pandemic.

Officials say the vehicles have undergone rigorous cleaning to ensure passenger safety.

“With everything that happened with COVID and our shuttles being the size that they are there’s no way to appropriately social distance without added measures.”

Therefore, like so many things impacted by the pandemic, May Mobility’s Director of Marketing Laurie Remias says their autonomous vehicle service came to a halt back in March.

But this week… she says they are back on the road-ready to transport customers around town. 

“Our team of engineers alongside partners worked together to have clean,shared mobility.  We’re happy to be back to compliment transportation that already exisits.”

If you’ve never taken one, the May Mobility vehicles are those really small cars you may have seen on city streets.  And while those free shuttles may look like they have a driver-they don’t-they’re autonomous.

“It’s a fancy way of saying that we use self-driving technology.

The May Mobility vehicles run on the Dash shuttle route.  It’s a hop on service. And Remias says they’re just happy to be back.

“People are very much aware of cleanliness and space and to continue providing services that people can be confident in.”

The free shuttles, which were introduced in July of 2019 were operating as part of the Grand Rapids Autonomous Vehicle Initiative (or AVGR).

Jennifer is an award winning broadcast news journalist with more than two decades of professional television news experience including the nation's fifth largest news market. She's worked as both news reporter and news anchor for television and radio in markets from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo all the way to San Francisco, California.