Your first ride in an autonomous vehicle may not be in a car but a shuttle bus. Indeed, the first fully autonomous shuttle operating on public streets in the United States is set to start rolling in Las Vegas this week as part of a yearlong study. The electric bus, built by Navya, a French company, will be operated and maintained by the mass-transit company Keolis.
Outfitted with lidar, radar, and video cameras, the Navya shuttle is typically able to accommodate as many as 15 passengers, but the one being put into service in Nevada will be limited to eight people at a time, corresponding to the number of seatbelts in the vehicle. According to Navya, the shuttle can run for eight hours or longer on a single charge. But it won’t be going very quickly: The shuttle has a top speed of 28 mph and is expected to traverse its fixed route at about 15 mph. Currently, there are more than 50 autonomous Navya shuttles being used around the world, primarily on private, closed campuses. In the U.S., the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor plans to start running two Navya shuttles on campus sometime this month. In Las Vegas, there will be three pickup and drop-off spots along the 0.6-mile route, and the shuttle will be in constant communication with parts of the city’s smart infrastructure, including traffic lights, to help improve safety and traffic flow.  The preset loop will be in the Fremont East section of downtown Las Vegas (far from the lights and tourists on the...