Automated driverless vehicles soon will cruise select Minnesota roadways for the first time, moving passengers and mingling with other traffic in Rochester and potentially White Bear Lake.
The Med City Mover is expected to start looping through downtown Rochester late this summer or in early fall with stops at Mayo Clinic and the People's Food Co-op, part of a growing list of sites across the country, including Yellowstone National Park, that are testing driverless technology.
White Bear Lake leaders and partners say they are pursuing a similar driverless shuttle route.
In Rochester, the brightly colored purple and orange electric shuttles will top out at 15 miles per hour. The vehicles are tall and square and about the size of an economy car. A paid attendant will ride in the shuttle and will be able to take control of the vehicle in case of an emergency.
"This will be the first time in Minnesota we are operating one of these shuttles in a live multimodal urban environment with live traffic," said Tara Olds, deputy director of Minnesota Department of Transportation's Connected and Automated Vehicle Office. "It helps people to have a better understanding of what the future of transportation could look like."
Med City Mover — a collaboration between a handful of partners including MnDOT, the city of Rochester and First Transit — will operate for a year free to the public. The goal is to gather data and give people, including other motorists, an opportunity to interact with driverless vehicles. It also is a chance to test the vehicles in a cold climate, Olds said.
"These really haven't been in weather conditions like we see in Minnesota," Olds said.
A driverless shuttle did run along a portion of Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis during Super Bowl 2018, but that street was closed to other traffic.