“We at the department are very focused on managing the assets that we have for now, but we want to have our eye on the future, recognizing that there are a lot of changes that are coming fast," said Shoshana Lew, chief operating officer for RIDOT. "And we want to be part of the conversation, not reacting to it later."
About a year ago, the Rhode Island Transportation Department began a “public conversation" with other government agencies, elected officials, academic institutions, private-sector companies and others, said Lew. The idea was “to really talk about what the challenges are with autonomy and other innovations in transportation technology and what that will mean for the work that we do as a transportation agency.”
Out of those conversations came several overall themes the department wanted to explore through an AV study project: improved and equitable mobility, safer transportation, economic growth and workforce development, sustainability and smart cities data management.
“From those principles we tried to kind of design a first leg forward into this effort that will help us to answer questions in those areas — again, working together with our academic partners to make sure that we’re doing this in a way that actually gets us the research that we need,” said Lew.
To test these principles, officials picked the neighborhood of Olneyville, an area of Providence known for its historic industrial past, that now boasts “a lot of energy about creating an innovation district now,” said Lew.
The area is also a good candidate for a transit pilot study due to its current lack of transit services, say officials.
“There’s actually a gap that we can fill by adding a kind of neat option into that neighborhood, and we think that it’s a community where the people who are moving into it,” said Lew, “it’s a really diverse population who we think can be part of a really community-driven effort around testing new technology. We think this is a sweet spot for trying that out.”
The service envisioned is a “short-distance shuttle that will essentially go roughly from the train station in downtown Providence through this neighborhood,” said Lew. “We want the partners who potentially apply for it to be innovative, and kind of give us your best shot at how you would make this work. We were similarly non-prescriptive about the type of technology that they use. We could see a low-speed shuttle as a possibility. There certainly are other places that are testing that. But that is not the only technology we would consider."
Proposals from the RFP are due in mid-summer, with some of the initial testing beginning by the end of the year. The project will likely be structured as a two-phase project, while still having a research component run throughout. There will be an initial testing period at the Quonset Business Park in North Kingstown, R.I., home to nearly 200 businesses and more than 10,000 workers.
“They are a business park so the streets are a little less congested and will work as a good testing ground,” said Pamela Cotter, policy director for RIDOT.
Cities all across the country such as Gainesville, Fla.; Las Vegas; Detroit; San Ramon, Calif.; Arlington, Texas and more have been involved with the testing of autonomous shuttles.
Academic institutions in New England will also be asked to offer research projects related to AV shuttle technologies in Providence.
“What we are envisioning is there will be an operator … and then also allow researchers from whatever institutions, whether it be an Ivy League school, or a combination, and a workforce-type school, and they’ll be able to then sort of talk about user experience, interview the riders, figure out what the mobility aspects of this are,” said Cotter.
