ARLINGTON (WBAP & KLIF News) — Autonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars, were available for the public to ride today in Arlington.
The company Alliance for Transportation Innovation brought a driver-less bus called “Easy Mile 10” to a parking lot at the Arlington Convention Center for the public to test-ride between 9:00 Thursday morning and 1:00 pm.
Paul Brubaker is the CEO of ATI, and he says they brought the car to Arlington because they want to ease public concern regarding the technology.
“Four out of five people don’t want anything to do with self-driving [vehicles]. They don’t trust the underlying technology,” Brubaker said. “So we want people to see it. Seeing is believing.”
The vehicle is built with laser technology that surrounds the car and detects objects in its way, triggering an automatic brake system. This particular model, which tops out at 25 mph and today ran only around 8 mph, can detect an object 40 meters in front of it because the brakes trigger.
There is also an emergency brake button that can be pushed by a passenger, bringing the vehicle to an immediate halt.
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The end game, Brubaker says, is working different models of the vehicles into society to eliminate potential safety issues that plague drivers today.
“Computers don’t drink and drive. They don’t text and drive. They don’t fall asleep and get fatigued,” Brubaker said. “They’re aware and making millions of computations based on all the inputs they’re getting from the sensors every second.”
There’s no official timetable for when the vehicles will be integrated among Arlington drivers for the next stage of test runs, but an earlier estimate from the Texas Department of Transportation stated it could be as early as January 2018.
“If people can feel it, if they can experience it firsthand, I think it will go a long way to increasing public adoption and [eliminating] a lot of the concerns that they have,” Brubaker said.
For a video tour inside the self-driving car, visit WBAP’s Facebook page by clicking here.
