(INDIANAPOLIS) – A self-driving car service is revving up in Indy and Fishers.
Michigan-based May Mobility will have four Lexuses and a Polaris shuttling between downtown Indy and IUPUI starting Tuesday, then move to Fishers in November.The free service is debuting with four days of introductory laps around the statehouse from Capitol and Ohio.
May Mobility operates regular self-driving shuttles in Grand Rapids, the Dallas suburb of Arlington, and Higashihiroshima, Japan. Indy is the fourth city beyond those three to host a demo of the cars. Policy head Tara Lanigan says the goal is to get people accustomed to riding without a driver, and eventually, to plug holes in city bus systems. The IUPUI shuttle will bridge the gap between the IndyGo Red Line’s downtown service and the campus’s Jagline bus.
The cars use a web of a dozen sensors to navigate through stopped traffic, pedestrians, and other potential obstacles. Lanigan says the cars have never had an accident in autonomous mode — she says there have been two minor fender-benders, both when a human driver was temporarily at the wheel. But the company’s engineers are still working to improve the vehicles. Heavy rain can confuse the sensors, making them detect obstacles that aren’t there and slam hard on the brakes. Lanigan says the company will deploy human drivers when the weather’s bad.
Governor Holcomb championed a bill in 2018 to spell out rules for self-driving vehicles, with the goal of drawing those companies’ research to Indiana. That bill died when legislators couldn’t agree on a final version, but Lanigan says nothing in state law prohibits autonomous vehicles as long as the cars have their plates and registration.
