Atlanta's first driverless shuttle starts Beltline service
Without completely copy/pasting the article:
Called "ATL Spoke", it launches in the West End on Friday.
The Spoke will connect the West End MARTA Station to Lee & White, the mixed-use district along the Beltline's Southwest Trail that's home to breweries, restaurants, a climbing gym and more.
Shuttles are free and will run every 12 to 15 minutes from noon to 10pm, seven days a week. The vehicles will operate from 8am to midnight on World Cup game days.
It's funded by a $1.75 million grant from the Atlanta Transit Link Authority — now the Georgia Transportation Efficiency Authority — plus matching Beltline funds.
It will use four Karsan Autonomous e-JEST electric shuttles, which are ADA-accessible and use cameras, sensors, lidar and GPS to navigate. They can carry 12 passengers. The shuttles are driverless, but an attendant will ride along as the human authority figure.
Phase two will extend the route to the Atlanta University Center this fall.
Here's more from beltline.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20260531030047/https://beltline.org/atl-spoke/
Personally? I think it's overall fine. Especially with people saying rail, which is way more predictable, would be a problem, it'll be interesting to see an auto navigate bikers, skaters, pedestrians, weirdos, dogs, etc. I imagine it won't actually be that fast? But we'll see. If it does work, there's no reason rail shouldn't. Rail would be stuck to its tracks, more predictable, faster, etc.