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Self-Driving Pods On Their Way To UK
Originally published on Gas2.
By Christopher DeMorro.
The talk of driverless, fully automated cars is exciting news for the future, though the future might be closer than we think. Milton Keynes, a small city north of London, will be installing a fleet of 100 automated “pod cars” that will run between downtown, the train station, and various offices in-between. Will public transit beat automakers to the rollout of self-driving cars?
The plan calls for 100 pods, each capable of holding two people and luggage, to roll around in special lanes built all around Milton Keynes. The city was chosen for its already-wide roads, and the £65million/$104 million project will get started in 2015 and is expected to be fully completed around 2017. Pedestrians can call one of the pods to their location via a smartphone app, as well as pay the £2 fee, and a similar (albeit smaller) system has been in use at London’s Heathrow airport since 2011.
These pods could point the way for ward for public transit, offering a modicum of privacy and some of the versatility of your own vehicle, while freeing up the roads from loud, slow, and polluting buses. Eventually the government may even remove the segregated lanes, allowing the pods (which move along at just 12 mph) to ferry people with even more versatility.
Who knows, maybe one day we’ll all hop aboard a pod on our way to work.
Source: Electric Vehicle News
Self-Driving Pods On Their Way To UK was originally published on: CleanTechnica.
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Source: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/04/self-driving-pods-way-uk/
