The on-demand service, which includes four May Mobility Lexus RX450h vehicles and one wheelchair-accessible Polaris GEM equipped with May Mobility’s autonomous technology, operates within a 1.36 sq. mile service zone that includes more than 20 designated pick up and drop off areas in downtown Grand Rapids. The May Mobility AV shuttles are free to ride and operate Monday – Friday from 7am – 7 pm.

“The City of Grand Rapids has enjoyed its partnership with May Mobility to provide innovative mobility options through the Grand Rapids Autonomous Vehicle Initiative. We look forward to embarking on this next phase together and support continued development of autonomous mobility technology while providing another equitable mobility option to connect underserved neighborhoods in Ward 1 to the downtown area,” said Justin Kimura, the Assistant Director of Mobile GR

Transitioning to “On Demand”
May Mobility has adopted Via’s autonomous fleet platform to power booking, routing, passenger and vehicle assignment and identification, customer experience, and fleet management as part of their new flexible transit solution for this Grand Rapids deployment. The partners have a long-term strategy to introduce driverless on-demand shared transit systems in multiple locations. The Grand Rapids launch follows the companies’ joint RAPID autonomous vehicle service in Arlington, Texas. RAPID offers autonomous vehicle rides as part of the City of Arlington’s large on-demand public transit service with Via, and is the first-of-its kind in the US.

Riders can request vehicles within the designated area of service by downloading the May Mobility mobile application, which is available for both Android and iOS devices. The app shows the rider the nearest pickup location and suggested drop off location within closest proximity to their point of interest. 

door2door’s mobility analytics software will determine optimal parameters for mobility operators to run autonomous shuttles, supporting transit planners with simulations and demand/supply analysis. Their on-demand fleet management software will be deployed to both Olli’s onboard HMI and the passenger’s smartphone. This enables riders to call an Olli vehicle to their location and define a drop-off location within the vehicle’s operating domain. To fully optimize the joint autonomous shuttle service, door2door’s pooling algorithms will allow for shared rides.

Traffic jams, lack of parking, air pollution – better mobility concepts are needed to avert the threat of complete gridlock in many city centers. There is great potential for new providers in the mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) segment, which focuses on linking public transport and services such as taxis and ride-sharing and bike-sharing providers to form a seamless network. The backbone for this is formed by autonomous and zero-emission cargo and people movers as well as robo-taxis that are to take passengers to their desired destination on demand in the future. In order to accelerate the development and dissemination of such systems even further, ZF is now the first major automotive supplier to join the MaaS Alliance, a special interest group working to facilitate mobility-as-a-service concepts throughout Europe.

All-round package for autonomous shuttles of the future

As the industry’s only systems supplier, ZF offers all the components needed for autonomous people movers from a single source. In addition to sensors, mainframe computers, software and functions, actuators (e.g. steering systems and brakes), and electric drives, the Group’s comprehensive technology portfolio also includes safety products.

At the same time, ZF is continuously developing its integrated systems for networked and automated applications. As recently as spring of this year, the Group further strengthened its position in the growth markets for MaaS solutions by acquiring a majority stake in Dutch mobility provider 2getthere. For more than 20 years, 2getthere has been offering autonomous shuttles for a variety of applications, with the application spectrum of the fully automated electric transport systems ranging from airports, industrial parks, and theme parks to urban transport infrastructures.

Hand in hand for holistic solutions

Together with the partners of the MaaS Alliance, ZF wants to better identify and find sustainable solutions for the challenges posed by the new mobility concepts. “By joining the alliance, we are establishing important contacts both with other mobility service providers and with the public sector, making it possible to bring together our different perspectives and expertise and pull together in the same direction,” says Klaus Kimmelmann, Head of Corporate Strategy at ZF.

The MaaS Alliance was founded as part of a public–private partnership. Its primary objective is to enable the launch of a uniform and open market for MaaS solutions within Europe and beyond. For more information, visit the MaaS Alliance website at www.maas-alliance.eu .

Based on Eclipse Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) project that originated at the German Aerospace Center, the openMobility Working Group brings together researchers and industry to create a common simulation platform for urban areas in a shared collaboration, open source environment. This framework will provide the tools for a detailed simulation of the movement of people and vehicles as well as their communication systems. It will be critical in testing driver assistance systems, predicting and optimizing traffic as well as evaluating new business concepts such as Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS).

The automotive mobility ecosystem initiatives are designed to make transportation safer for everyone and accelerate innovation through collaboration with the aim to:

• Share intellectual property without the threat of antitrust and regulatory challenges;
• Enable the creation of a common open platform for automotive and transportation software quality assurance and testing;
• Share costs and innovation below the value line and focus on investing scarce resources on building differentiated features;
• Accelerate product development and thereby improve time-to-revenue;
• Leverage open collaboration as a force multiplier for members at a time of a huge developer shortage, sharing engineering resources versus redundant hiring of talent to do the same work in vendor silos;
• Enable ecosystem participants alike to safely collaborate across value chains and industries to develop new business models and revenue streams.

Author: Christine Hensmann, SBD