JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — If you're around the Florida State College at Jacksonville's Downtown campus, you may see two new shuttles in action without a driver behind the wheel.
"I would say this is the future of public transportation, with everything being automated," said Aidan Scott, a first-year student at FSCJ.
Scott and other students have found a new way to get around campus: in a shuttle that drives itself.
"You know, I could just hop in one of these and go to the other building across the street," Scott told First Coast News. "It would save me a lot of time because I tend to get here almost five minutes before class."
Bringing the vehicles created by Beep is not only for students' convenience, but allows them to test out the shuttles in which the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) wants to utilize throughout Downtown Jacksonville by next year. JTA aims to add routes for the self-driving vehicles on Bay Street to EverBank Stadium.
"There's a lot of technical along with human elements that we will be looking at during this pilot period," JTA CEO Nat Ford said. "So, as we start marching towards the Bay Street corridor launch, we will incorporate those learnings."
With the vehicles now on FSCJ's Downtown campus, it's making history as the first autonomous shuttle service at any college campus in Florida.
"It's going to make things easier, especially for people who don't have the same motor skills as anyone else," Scott said.
Despite the rollout, JTA and Beep are reminding FSCJ students and staff that this is a pilot program, as redesigning the shuttles will happen if issues start to arise on campus.
"There's still time that needs to go into the technology to allow these to run at night, right now we can only run them in the daytime," FSCJ President Dr. John Avendano told First Coast News.
This school year and next, developers with Beep and JTA will look into students' experiences on the automated vehicles and put the finishing touches on the fleet before launching the first phase of the Bay Street Innovation Corridor in 2025.
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