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Glydways

Silicon Valley self-driving company Glydways said it will develop a test public transportation system to pick up passengers between the Atlanta Convention Center and the airport. Atlanta Airport is one of the busiest airports in the United States. If the pilot project is successful, it will expand public transportation capacity while reducing urban operating costs.

According to Semafor on August 24, with the support of venture capitalists such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and first investor Vinod Khosla, Glydways plans to manufacture small electric self-driving cars that can travel along fixed routes. It has now reached an agreement to establish an experimental public transportation system in Atlanta to transport passengers from the city's convention center to the airport, a total distance of approximately 16 kilometers.

Glydways executives say their small self-driving cars can deliver goods at speeds comparable to railroads, but at a much lower cost. The cars they developed are narrower than traditional vehicles, about 1.5 meters wide, and can carry 10,000 people per hour on lanes about 1.8 meters wide. In comparison, a 3.6-meter-wide highway lane can carry a maximum of about 2,200 people, and although light rail can transport about 10,000 people, it requires wider lanes. However, some experts are skeptical of Glydways' data. In addition, the transportation system requires dedicated lanes, such as elevated platforms, and uses small diagonal stops for loading and unloading. In response, the company said that the space occupied by these infrastructures is much smaller than large parking lots or various stations.

Glydways' cars will be controlled by a central network. Although the railway system is also controlled by a central network, its number is fixed and it is difficult to adapt to weather changes. Glydways' vehicles can not only be moved, but also expanded to transport more passengers, and can also transport bicycles to complete the last leg of the journey.

Glydways has two similar projects underway, one of which is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, used to transport passengers between San Jose Airport and Contra Costa County. Although these projects are still pilot projects, it is not difficult to see that the technology is gradually being accepted by mainstream society. Glydways CEO Gokul Hemmady said that the company hopes to start with small pilot projects and then gradually expand to more complex transportation networks in cities, and eventually pick up passengers on ordinary roads.

Currently, similar projects have been put into use in the UAE, and Heathrow Airport has also used it to replace some buses. It is reported that Glydways will eventually open the source code of the operating system or license the use of the underlying technology. If Glydways forms a reference standard and allows other companies to develop and improve the technology, it will create economies of scale. If the project is promoted, car manufacturers can manufacture cars compatible with the Glydways network, which can increase transportation capacity and reduce urban operation costs.