The arguments the article lays out in favor of testing early autonomous vehicles as campus shuttles are compelling, and the reasons against not nearly so.<p>We expect a driver to provide certain services only because they happen to be there; like an elevator operator, toll booth operator, or person directing traffic, there's really no problem operating without them. You could easily put a "Call" button in an autonomous shuttle (as is seen in elevators) to cover most of the corner cases that need human intervention.<p>I think this test market is a great plan.
Interesting to see two YC companies that do the exact same thing in consecutive cohorts. Beside that point though, this is very different from normal autonomous cars. The path is preset and guided using GPS and the cars can avoid people using Liar. They avoid dynamic path planning and they have no need for traffic laws which explains the 2017 to market time.<p>I am skeptical on university campuses adopting this. Get on a bike people. Golf courses and retirements homes, well those may have use cases.
The problem with autonomous shuttles on campuses, especially university/college campuses, is that people who are walking can be very unpredictable, and doubly-so if they are listening to music with headphones.<p>I had a student job where I would drive our golf cart all over campus and it was awful at times when there would be many students out during class change, arriving on campus, or leaving. People don't pay attention or they take chances on their bikes/longboards.