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Wednesday 18 OctOber 2017 technology
A24

Autonomous cars head for the Big Apple

By DEE-ANN DURBIN and In a blog post earlier this rized to test autonomous
TOM KRISHER month, Vogt said every vehicles on public roads in
AP Auto Writers minute of testing in a com- California as of September.
DETROIT (AP) — Autono- plicated urban environ- Las Vegas has tested an
mous vehicles are already ment like San Francisco is autonomous shuttle.
navigating the verdant the equivalent of an hour Manhattan is easier for
hills of Pittsburgh and the of testing in suburbs. For autonomous vehicles to
pitched avenues of San example, he said, test cars navigate than Boston or
Francisco. They may soon in San Francisco encoun- Los Angeles because it’s
be tested by the chaos of tered 270 emergency ve- laid out in a grid and cars
Manhattan, where pedes- hicles every 1,000 miles; in generally go at low speeds,
trians, taxis, buses and bikes the Phoenix suburbs, they said Art Wheaton, an auto
embark daily on an eternal only encountered six. industry expert and direc-
quest to avoid impact. “Testing in the hardest tor of Western New York
Cruise Automation, a San places first means we’ll get Labor and Environmental
Francisco-based self-driv- to scale faster than starting Programs for the Worker In-
ing software company In this Thursday, May 25, 2017, file photo, traffic makes its way with the easier ones,” Vogt stitute at Cornell University.
down Seventh Avenue in New York’s Times Square. Cruise
owned by General Motors Automation, a self-driving software company owned by General wrote. But it’s harder to navigate
Co., aims to begin testing Motors, will start testing in New York in early 2018. Cruise also plans to set up because of the volume of
in New York City early next Associated Press an office in New York as traffic. “If you can handle
year. GM and Cruise are cording to a spokeswoman behind the wheel and an part of its testing. the pedestrian and bicycle
applying to operate in New for New York’s Department observer in the front pas- Vogt hasn’t said when and vehicle traffic in an
York under a new pilot pro- of Motor Vehicles. senger seat. Sullivan said Cruise and GM plan to ex- area as congested as New
gram announced Tuesday The test vehicles will be testing will start with a small pand beyond testing and York City, that’s a pretty big
by New York Gov. Andrew electric Chevrolet Bolt cars fleet that will grow incre- actually sell autonomous test,” Wheaton said.
Cuomo. equipped with cameras, mentally to ensure safety vehicles. But rival compa- Wheaton also said New
If approved, the tests will radar, sensors and Cruise’s and legal compliance. nies have said they could York is the kind of place
mark the first time a fully software. GM and Cruise “Bringing this lifesaving be on the road in about that could see the first ap-
self-driving vehicle will currently have a registered technology to New York- four years. plications of autonomous
be allowed to operate in fleet of 100 autonomous ers safely and quickly is our New York is a relative late- shuttles or shared vehicle
New York state, Cuomo Bolts, according to GM number one priority,” Sulli- comer to autonomous ve- fleets because of its dense
said in a statement. Volk- spokesman Patrick Sullivan. van said. hicle testing. Boston-based population. If a delivery
swagen AG’s Audi brand They’re already operating Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt says startup nuTonomy began company or a taxi service
and GMs’s Cadillac also in San Francisco, Phoenix the densely populated city testing autonomous taxis in has a fleet of 50 or 100 au-
have demonstrated semi- and the Detroit area. of more than 8 million peo- Singapore last year and is tonomous vehicles that
autonomous technology in In New York, a small fleet ple will give the company now testing them in Boston. need constant service,
Albany and New York City, of cars will operate in a more unusual situations to Uber and Volvo began test- maintenance and park-
but those systems weren’t 5-square-mile area of low- test software and acceler- ing self-driving vehicles in ing, the cars need to get
as advanced as the one er Manhattan. They will ate the development of Pittsburgh last fall. Forty-two enough use to make that
developed by Cruise, ac- always have an engineer the technology. companies were autho- economically viable.q

Self-driving cars could ease

traffic, but increase sprawl

research how passengers one of the biggest chal- Office of New Urban Me-
book and route a self-driv- lenges,” said Nikolaus chanics, which has part-
ing car. Lang, a co-author of the nered with the consulting
The consulting group’s study. The research adds group and autonomous
study included a computer to another study published car developers as part of a
simulation of how down- this month by researchers long-term plan to improve
town Boston traffic would at the University of Califor- to transportation safety
change with the advent nia, Davis, who found users and equity.
of self-driving taxis, buses of ride-hailing services such “All these companies are
In this Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017, file photo, an autonomous vehicle or private cars. It would as Uber and Lyft are less going to make money off
is driven by an engineer on a street in an industrial park in Boston. likely add vehicles to roads likely to use public transit. the public infrastructure
Associated Press while simultaneously reduc- The Davis study — which without actually paying
By MATT O’BRIEN day by the Boston Con- ing traffic time and cut- looked at Boston and six back into it,” Jacob said.
AP Technology Writer sulting Group and the ting pollution because of other metropolitan regions In the meantime, Jacob
BOSTON (AP) — A new World Economic Forum, is smoother driving patterns, — says that the trend away said the city is working to
study inspired by Boston’s a mostly optimistic take on such as steadier speeds from public transit could help companies as they try
early experiments with self- how autonomous vehicles and more gradual braking. have broader implications to understand the future
driving cars finds that the could change cities. At the same time, the effi- once autonomous vehicle market for self-driving ve-
technology could ease Three companies are now ciency and convenience technology becomes com- hicles, as well as the techni-
congestion, but might also testing self-driving cars in of autonomous technology mercially viable and a fea- cal challenges of navigat-
lead to more cars on the Boston’s Seaport District. could encourage more ture of ride-hailing apps. ing the city’s “old, bizarre
road and further encour- One of them, NuTonomy, people to live in the sub- All of this raises questions roadway system that’s
age urban sprawl. has also partnered with urbs. for city planners, said Nigel constantly subject to freez-
The report, released Tues- ride-hailing service Lyft to “Urban sprawl is definitely Jacob, co-chair of Boston’s ing and thawing.” q