MIT spin-off Optimus Ride has announced today that its autonomous shuttles will shortly be transporting workers around geofenced areas of the Brooklyn Navy Yard – a 300 acre industrial park with 400 businesses and 9,000 workers – and ferrying residents along defined routes in the 80 acre private community of Paradise Valley Estates in Fairfield, CA.
Self-driving shuttle services have been nudging their way into cities around the globe of late, including Sweden, Singapore and Finland. But the Brooklyn project, which is due to launch during Q2 of this year, will be the first commercial self-driving vehicle program in New York state. The vehicles will loop around the development's private roads, connecting New York City ferry passengers to Flushing Avenue over the Yard's boundary.
In the second half of the year, Optimus Ride shuttles will roll into the private, gated community of Paradise Valley Estates, initially offering potential buyers tours of the estate. Residents will subsequently be able to reserve or hail rides between properties or to the health center and other amenities.
Beyond a few images showing four and six door people movers, Optimus Ride hasn't revealed anything about its vehicles, stating only that its technology is vehicle agnostic, so could be deployed to a "wide variety of vehicles."
Source: Optimus Ride
