Hurried cyclists, impatient drivers and pedestrians who don’t look both ways before crossing the street are some of the obstacles Gainesville’s two self-driving shuttles must avoid as they follow their designated routes along Southwest Second Avenue and the 13th Street.

Now, with radio traffic technology installed by the Gainesville Regional Transit System along the shuttle’s route, the autonomous vehicle is relieved of an old responsibility: identifying the change in light on the road’s traffic lights. .

According to the city’s director of traffic operations, Emmanuel Posadas, the shuttle originally relied on “computer vision,” a technology that relies on visual inputs, to make traffic choices such as deciding stop.

Now the shuttle also receives a signal from the light.

Posadas explained that this transmission works through roadside units, or RSUs, installed atop traffic lights. These devices broadcast a dedicated short-range radio to an onboard unit, a device that receives that signal on the shuttle. This technology works at 27 intersections near the University of Florida campus.

“[It] broadcasts traffic light status all the time, to anyone who can listen,” Posadas said.

While the vehicle still relies on visual and sensory inputs from the cameras installed on board the Shuttle, for other functions this radio capability represents an upgrade to computer vision alone as it is more difficult to interrupt. . If a truck blocks the shuttle’s line of sight, for example, it will always know the current color of the signal light.

This reliance on different types of external stimuli, i.e. sensory, visual or radio, is known as data fusion.

“You can’t just rely on vision, you can’t just rely on [sensors] alone, or you can’t rely on the signal…alone,” Posadas said. “You kind of have to merge everything to understand.”

The installation of the RSUs around the UF was part of a larger Florida Department of Transportation initiative called Florida’s Connected and Automated Vehicle Initiative. According to the FDOT website, the project aims to promote communication exchanges between “vehicles, the roadside, cyclists and pedestrians”.

Gainesville’s implementation of the statewide initiative — called Project Trapeze because of the shape the RSU takes — became operational in 2019. However, it wasn’t until recently that units began to work in tandem with the shuttles to increase their autonomy.

This latest enhancement to the city’s self-driving shuttle comes just months after the shuttle route was expanded to include part of 13th Street.

Dr. Pruthvi Manjunatha is the director of UF’s I-STREET Living Lab, the research-focused university actor in this project. He said the initiative was rolling out slowly, in stages. Phase 1 started downtown, extending to the Innovation Square area. Phase 2 involves additional stops in front of the UF and the communication aspect with the traffic lights.

The route extension on a busy street represents a bold step forward for these projects, which were suspended by the federal government in 2020 after an incident in Ohio where a woman fell inside the vehicle due to a sudden shutdown for unknown reasons.

In response to the incident, new safety measures were implemented inside the vehicle, including the addition of anti-slip mats and seat belts. Federal guidelines also require that someone always oversee security from inside the shuttle.

Michelle Richter is one of two security operators. Her job is to make sure passengers wear their seatbelts, keep their masks on, and sometimes “validate” the shuttle’s movements on a device she takes with her.

“That’s why we have you in a seatbelt,” Richter said. “It can be over in no time. It’s scary when it does because you don’t expect it.

Although Richter acknowledges that the shuttle sometimes moves abruptly, she tends to agree with the vehicle’s decisions, as there are countless moving parts in the road. She explained that any movement the shuttle makes is to avoid hitting a person or object.

“The security sensors we have are great for here because you’ll see crazy kids with their phones walking past you,” Richter said. “I’m still very grateful that this vehicle didn’t hit them. It won’t.”

Pruthvi said he doesn’t expect self-driving shuttles to replace buses anytime soon, saying any such statement would be speculation. This project aims to fill the gaps in the transport system and not to replace the fleet.

“They call it the last mile between your community and the bus station,” Richter said. “We seek to fill this gap.”