Instead of a human grabbing the wheel to help a self-driving shuttle in a jam, a university is looking to remote drivers. Oregon-based teleoperations company Designated Driver is working with Texas A&M University's self-driving shuttles in downtown Bryan, Texas, to remotely control the ride on a fixed half-mile route through the town's shopping district. TAMU and the city of Bryan launched the shuttles last year with a safety driver and safety navigator in the front driver and passenger seats. With Designated Driver coming in with its cameras and communication system, only the safety navigator is needed – mostly for checking on passengers and making sure everyone's buckled up. SEE ALSO: This is what it's like to control an autonomous car from miles away Designated Driver CTO Walter Sullivan said in a phone call this week that with the new set-up it's "driving remotely but almost as if they're in the vehicle."

Texas A&M University is modifying its self-driving pilot program in the city of Bryan, Texas, to have humans remotely monitor and operate the shuttles starting in September, making it one of the first commercial deployments of teleoperation technology in the country. The teleoperation technology is being provided by a Portland, Oregon-based startup called Designated Driver. It will allow humans at Texas A&M to remotely control the shuttles in situations where the self-driving system may not be up to snuff, and they'll also be able to interact with passengers on board. The new functionality could help solve a problem that similarly nascent autonomous shuttle programs have run into: crashes. The low-speed autonomous shuttles currently whispering their way around a handful of downtown areas and campuses across the country are among the first real-world tests of self-driving technology.

Even in the middle of the day, the 50-mile trip from San Francisco to San Jose is a pain. Like a toddler, Bay Area driving toggles between slumber (rush-hour slogs) and frenzy (passing-happy speeding). It's enough to make one eager for the day when robots rule the roads. And it's more than enough to make me envy Evan Livingston, who doesn't have to show up in person this meeting, held in a Lincoln MKZ sedan roaming downtown San Jose. No, Livingston is sitting comfortably in his office in Portland, Oregon, when he appears on the screens inside the car and announces he'll be our teleoperator this afternoon.