The Minnesota Department of Transportation helped direct federal money toward the Grand Rapids project, which followed a similar effort in the southern Minnesota city of Rochester. Tara Olds, the department's director of connected and automated vehicles, said her agency sought smaller communities that wanted to give autonomous vehicles a shot.
Neither kind of driver will ever be perfect, Olds said. "You know, humans make mistakes, and computers make mistakes," she said. But the public would understandably react differently if a fatal crash were caused by an autonomous vehicle instead of a human, she said.
Frank Douma, a research scholar at the University of Minnesota's Center for Transportation Studies, has analyzed the Grand Rapids project and other autonomous vehicle programs. He said running such projects in smaller towns isn't necessarily harder than doing so in urban areas. "It's just different."
TICKET TO COMMUNITY: Myrna Peterson rolls her wheelchair into a goMARTI van as operator Mark Haase watches.
For the foreseeable future, such services probably will need to run on predetermined routes, with regular stops, he said. It would be more complicated to have autonomous vehicles travel on demand to unfamiliar addresses out in the countryside.
Developers will need to overcome significant challenges before autonomous vehicles can become a regular part of rural life, he said. "But it's no longer something that can be dismissed as impossible."
A 2022 report from the National Disability Institute predicted that autonomous vehicles could help many people with disabilities get out of their homes and obtain jobs.
Tom Foley, the group's executive director, said a lack of transportation often causes isolation, which can lead to mental health problems. "There's an epidemic of loneliness, particularly for older people and particularly for people with disabilities," he said.
Foley, who is blind, has tried fully autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. He believes someday they will become a safe and practical alternative to human drivers, including in rural areas. "They don't text. They don't drink. They don't get distracted," he said.
For now, most riders who use wheelchairs need attendants to secure them inside a van before it starts moving. But researchers are looking into ways to automate that task so people who use wheelchairs can take advantage of fully autonomous vehicles.
The Grand Rapids project covers 35 miles of road, with 71 stops. The routes initially avoided parking lots, where human drivers often make unexpected decisions, Dege said. But organizers recognized
the street-side stops could be challenging for many people, especially if they're among the 10% of goMARTI riders who use wheelchairs. The autonomous vans now drive into some parking lots to pick riders up at the door.
The autonomous vans have gone out in nearly all kinds of weather, which can be a challenge in northern Minnesota. Grand Rapids received more than 7 feet of snow last winter.
The robot drivers can get stymied as well by roundabouts, also known as traffic circles. The setups are touted as safer than fourway stops, but they can befuddle human drivers too.
Haase took control each time the van approached a roundabout. He also took the wheel as the van came up on a man riding a bicycle along the right side of the road. "Better safe than sorry," Haase said. Once the van was a few yards past the bicycle, he pressed a button that told the robot to resume control.
Peterson takes the vans to stores, restaurants, community meetings, hockey games — "and church, of course, every Sunday and Wednesday," she said.
She said the project has brought Grand Rapids residents together to imagine a more inclusive future. "It's not just a fancy car," she said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tony Leys, Rural Editor/Correspondent, is based in Des Moines, where he worked 33 years as a reporter and editor for The Des Moines Register. Tony was the Register's lead health care reporter for more than 20 years and served four terms as a board member for the Association of Health Care Journalists. He is an alum of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT.
Respected trial lawyers. We're in your corner
The team at Hurley McKenna & Mertz, P.C. are recognized as top Chicago trial attorneys specializing in birth injury. Regional and national recognition as a top personal injury law firm comes from over 35 years of experience in the courtroom, leadership in the field, and record-breaking verdicts, we help people get the justice they deserve.
DOWNLOAD OUR FREE EBOOK: HOW TO SUPPORT A CHILD AFTER A BIRTH INJURY
FREE CONSULTATION • TEXT OR CALL 312.553.4900