Self-Driving Cars Could Give Beverly Hills Public Transportation a Facelift

It's not quite like the flying cars of Hill Valley, but public transportation in Beverly Hills will be getting a futuristic makeover. Beverly Hills City Council is putting their foot on the gas in an effort to service the city with self-driving cars. The council voted unanimously to launch a program that develops autonomous vehicles as a means of public transportation. The city of Beverly Hills plans to use the autonomous car fleet as "on-demand, point-to-point transportation."

The proposed program would use on-demand autonomous cars that would serve the 5.70-square-mile area known as 90210. In a statement made following the vote, Mayor John Mirisch stated "Beverly Hills is the perfect community to take the lead to make this technology a reality. It is now both feasible and safe for autonomous cars to be on the road." Mirisch originally elaborated on his vision in an op-ed for the LA Business Journal last June.

The city is currently designing a network of fiber-optic cables which would enable communication between smart cars, and also serve residents and businesses with high-speed connectivity. Going forward, the next step in realizing the autonomous car program will be to find the right companies to potentially partner with. The most logical candidates would include the likes of Google and Tesla. These sponsorships could even be a source of revenue for the city. At present, there's still no concrete allocation of funding for the city's autonomous car project.

In the meantime, autonomous vehicles are getting increasingly close to being deemed "road safe." Demonstration rides and discussion panels will soon be available to the public.

While Beverly Hills looks to make self-driving cars a mode of public transit, private companies have already been working on bringing these vehicles to both the car and ride-sharing markets. General Motors and Lyft announced a partnership to produce a fleet of self-driving cars back in January, while the self-driving Apple car is on pace for a 2019 release.

[via BHCC]

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Photo Credit: Mercedes-Benz

Source: Self-Driving Cars Could Give Beverly Hills Public Transportation a Facelift