Driverless shuttles could begin roaming the streets of downtown Colorado Springs next year if the city receives a federal grant to lease up to three electric vehicles for the new Downtown Connector service.
The city would use six-passenger shuttles from Autonomous Vehicles Colorado (AvCo), a program designed to bring advanced technologies to public transportation through the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance. AvCo began using nine electric-powered autonomous vehicles Tuesday to shuttle students, faculty and staff around three sites on the Colorado School of Mines campus and downtown Golden.
Craig Blewitt, director of Mountain Metropolitan Transit, which will operate the new shuttle service, said the city expects to hear soon about the grant, which would fund two years of operation and cost about $350,000. The shuttles would operate during daytime hours and supplement a fleet of six diesel buses that will operate the downtown shuttle that is expected to launch before Memorial Day.
“This is kind of a proof of concept to demonstrate that autonomous vehicles of this type can be successful in this environment. The downtown shuttle is a good opportunity to demonstrate the concept,” Blewitt said. “We believe this would be a good fit for this purpose since the shuttle travels at about 12 mph, it makes sense with the downtown environment with its stop-and-go traffic. We hope people will be excited about trying it.”
The low-speed, zero-emission shuttles in Golden use advanced sensors and technology to navigate traffic and include an on-board customer service “ambassador” who will be able to take manual control of the shuttle, if needed. AvCo also plans to use a fleet of five driverless shuttles to ferry commuters to light rail stations in Greenwood Village in a service that is expected to begin in the next year.
Much like the shuttle in Golden, the downtown driverless shuttles would have “ambassadors” on board — Mountain Metro drivers — that could take over control of the vehicle, if needed.
Mountain Metro is expected to launch the free downtown shuttle next spring with a fleet of six diesel buses. The new shuttle is expected to run mostly up and down Tejon Street, providing service at 10-minut intervals to the Robson Arena now under construction at Colorado College, the downtown bus station, the new Weidner Field soccer stadium and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum.
Federal coronavirus relief funding through the American Rescue Plan will jump start the service providing $7 million to operate the service for the first three years, he said. Mountain Metro also expects to use federal grant funding to cover 80% of the $3 million price tag to buy six new diesel buses for the service. The city is seeking another federal grant to convert the shuttle’s fleet of buses from diesel to electric-powered.
The Regional Transportation District in Denver tested an earlier generation of driverless shuttles for six months in 2019 between one of its light-rail stations near Denver International Airport and a nearby Panasonic digital video display technology and solar energy systems plant. Based on the results of that test, RTD is seeking a $6.33 million federal grant for a larger test on the University of Denver campus.
The only widely publicized use of an autonomous vehicle in the Colorado Springs area was a 2016 test with a self-driving truck to bring Budweiser beer from its Fort Collins brewery through downtown Denver to Colorado Springs. The 132-mile round trip made the Guinness World Record book for the “longest continuous journey by a driverless and autonomous lorry,” which is the term the British use for trucks. The record hasn’t been broken.
Driverless vehicles were legalized in Colorado by legislation signed into law in 2017 by former Gov. (now U.S. Senator) John Hickenlooper.
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