Your next Madison bus ride could be driven by a robot.
Leaders from UW-Madison, American Family Insurance and the city of Madison are working on a proposal to bring an autonomous shuttle to downtown Madison. The project, which is aiming to launch in the fall, would take people from the Spark building to the state Capitol in a driverless, 15-passenger electric shuttle.
The project is still very much in the proposal phase, and there are many details still to be worked out, said Kristofer Canto, sustainability administrator at American Family Insurance. For one, there hasn't been a decision made as to what driverless tech company will provide the vehicle, though Canto said AmFam will pay for the shuttle.
"We recognize the future of mobility---all the different technologies, whether it be autonomous, connected or shared mobility---are going to impact the insurance industry," Canto said. "Our perspective is, instead of waiting on the sidelines to see how it changes the industry, we'd prefer to be a part of shaping that and learning best practices."
UW-Madison is spearheading the project, and the plan for an autonomous shuttle has initial buy-in from city officials, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, who first reported on the news earlier this week.
The project is eyeing an initial three-year test period, said Jon Riehl, transportation systems engineer for UW-Madison’s Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory, adding that the project would require additional federal grant funding to operate the vehicle during that timeframe and beyond.
Once a vehicle is acquired---which will need to go through an RFP process---UW-Madison plans to test the shuttle at a facility in southeast Wisconsin to do winter testing and other adverse condition testing, Riehl said.
The proposed downtown Madison shuttle wouldn't be the first driverless car to hit Wisconsin streets. Last April, UW-Madison held driverless shuttle rides on its campus thanks to an autonomous vehicle provided by French company Navya. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Transportation designated the UW-Madison campus as one of 10 U.S. sites that would serve as a testing ground for driverless vehicles.
