Autonomous vehicles and underserved populations

Kudos to Alanti Whittemore, who is the director of the Autonomous Vehicle Initiative at SAFE which is a D.C.-based organization doing transportation policy research organization. As a director, she is responsible for helping do policy research and create the political will for a federal policy framework for autonomous vehicles and also helping to articulate all the social and economic benefits of the technology. She looks at how to improve access with autonomous vehicles, specifically how to share autonomous vehicles and integrate them with public transit and that can be used as a tool for increasing access and making our road better, and giving people better access to workforce opportunities, social opportunities and services they need.

Insights include:
• Looking at how autonomous vehicles like shuttles or 4 to 6-passenger vehicles can extend and give people transportation service from their neighborhood to the existing transit or the nearest bus stop
• Cities are thinking about equity right now and prioritizing those people in our cities that need service. Autonomous vehicle companies are hungry to show where Autonomous vehicles can provide positive outcomes for those who have a great need. So the meeting of those two needs is happening now.
• People who live in food deserts that do have access to transit but it’s a 30-minute trip just to get groceries. That is going to be such an excellent use case where they can now have access and they’re not spending that time on transit.