Riders can’t get aboard yet, but the Jacksonville Transportation Authority announced it has begun testing autonomous vehicles on its Bay Street Innovation Corridor.
JTA said vehicle testing would be conducted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays in the three-mile corridor, which stretches from Pearl Street to EverBank Stadium.
On-board attendants will be the only individuals permitted on the vehicles during the testing period, JTA said.
Plans for the $66.4 million Bay Street corridor call for it to include 12 stops and 14 shuttles, with shuttles running every seven minutes. JTA has targeted a June 2025 launch of the system.
A video presented during the Feb. 27 JTA board meeting showed one of the shuttles being tested at a remote facility in Auburndale and traveling Downtown. The video showed the vehicle, while at the testing site, steering itself and stopping as a person crossed the road in front of it.
The Bay Street Innovation Corridor is the first phase of the Ultimate Urban Circulator, which JTA refers to as U2C, a system of autonomous, electric vehicles providing public transportation in and around Downtown. The system’s design calls for vehicles to travel along an adapted Skyway elevated monorail, which will be connected by ramps to surface streets.
The estimated cost of the system is estimated at up to $400 million.
The system will be controlled at the $40.5 million Autonomous Innovation Center, which is under construction at 650 W. Bay St. near Broad and Water streets in LaVilla. The two-story, 15,019-square-foot building will serve as the technological control center and also will provide storage, servicing and maintenance for the vehicles.
During the board meeting, CEO Nat Ford announced that an opening ceremony for the building was scheduled for April 17.
Initially, the U2C will use retrofitted Ford E-Transit vans equipped with AV technology. The vans will carry up to nine passengers and will travel in the same lanes as surface traffic, JTA says.
Eventually, JTA plans to switch to vehicles from German autonomous-vehicle maker Holon, which announced plans to build a $100 million manufacturing facility in Jacksonville.
JTA piloted the system in 2024 with shuttles operating on a roughly 1-mile route at the Florida State College at Jacksonville Downtown campus.
The JTA and proponents of the U2C say the system will provide convenient, inexpensive and environmentally responsible transportation. Critics say it relies on unproven technology and is too costly, sapping funding from more affordable and pragmatic solutions.