AVs for retirement villages

Retirement communities are likely to see first use of driverless vehicles.

At least that’s the view of California-based Voyage, which uses existing technology to develop fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs).

“At Voyage, we believe that retirement communities are the perfect first location for truly driverless cars,” the company says.

It adds that such communities might be some of the only places to support fully autonomous driving for some time.

Voyage says retirement villages’ simpler, slower environments suit AVs.

“What’s more, millions of senior citizens who live in retirement communities need better transportation options today, accelerating adoption of the technology.”

Voyage deployed driverless shuttles to serve about 130,000 retirees at The Villages, a huge retirement community encompassing about 130 square kilometres in Florida where it has a multi-year licence to deploy an autonomous ride-sharing service.

It has brought on chief technology officer Drew Gray to help with AV transportation, following his contributions to major engineering initiatives at places like Tesla, Cruise, Otto, and Uber ATG.

Voyage co-founder and chief executive officer Oliver Cameron says the company took its self-driving car technology to market following a few simple rules.

These include deploying them in simpler, slower environments; solving meaningful transportation problems that impact large groups of people, and optimising for autonomous safety and performance over cost.

Retirement village speed limits are usually around or under 30km/h and the roadway easier to navigate, often avoiding traffic lights and complex lane merges – ideal for AVs.

“Autonomous vehicles are a great fit for any community where the environment is well-understood, less complex than dense urban areas, and the transportation demand is high,” Voyage strategy, policy and legal vice-president Justin Erlich says.

“Retirement communities satisfy all of these characteristics.”

Meanwhile, this August has seen New York city’s first AV shuttle service open to the public in Brooklyn, run by Optimus Ride.

It comprises about half-a-dozen six-seater EVs operating within the 120-hectare walled-off Brooklyn Navy Yard, operating about 1.7km from the entrance to the New York City Ferry dock on the East River. The service runs on a continuous loop between 7am and 10.30pm weekdays.

Each car has two safety drivers – one a passenger monitoring the vehicle’s sensors from a laptop. Optimus Ride in Boston will monitor the vehicles when they eventually go fully driverless.