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Ohio's first self-driving shuttle service begins on December 10th
Ohio wants to be a haven for self-driving cars, and it's already acting on those plans... if slowly. Smart Columbus and DriveOhio have announced that the state's first autonomous shuttle service, Smart Circuit, will launch in Columbus on December 10th. It's not a terribly ambitious route. Three May Mobility vehicles will cover a 1.5-mile loop around the Scioto Mile between 6AM and 10PM, with departures from each of the four stops every 10 minutes. There's a human backup driver onboard, too. However, rides are free. So long as you're not in a hurry (the shuttles drive at a modest 25MPH) and can take one of the four available seats, it won't hurt to hop aboard.
Ohio test uses drones to monitor highway traffic
Highway traffic monitoring is frequently... less than efficient. Fixed cameras can't catch problems beyond their immediate location, while aircraft are both costly and inevitably have to fly back to a distant base to refuel. These systems may soon get a robotic upgrade, though. Ohio State University is leading a pilot program that will use drones for roadway and traffic monitoring along a 35-mile highway stretch (the Smart Mobility Corridor) between Dublin and East Liberty. The dry run will see drones feed tracking data to the Ohio Department of Transportation's Traffic Management Center to complement data from existing systems. If there's a traffic-disrupting crash or a washed-out road, this might help spot it sooner.
