Autonomous vehicles are expected to transform transportation systems with rapid technological advancement. Human mobility would become more accessible and safer with the emergence of driverless vehicles. To this end, autonomous shuttle services are currently introduced in different urban conditions throughout the world. As a result, studies are needed to assess the safety and mobility performance of such autonomous shuttle services. However, calibrating the movement of autonomous shuttles in a simulation environment has been a difficult task due to the absence of any real-world data. This study aims to calibrate autonomous shuttles in a microscopic traffic simulation model and consequently assess the impact of the shuttle service on urban road capacity through simulation experiments. For this analysis, a prototype of an operational shuttle system at Lake Nona, Orlando, Florida is emulated in a microscopic traffic simulator during different times of the day. The movements of autonomous vehicles are calibrated using real-world trajectory data which help replicate the driving behavior of the shuttle in the simulation. The analysis reveals that with increasing frequency of the shuttle service the delay time percentage of the shared road sections increases and traveling speed decreases. It is also found that increasing the speed of shuttles up to 5 mph during off-peak hours and 10 mph during peak hours will improve traffic conditions. The findings from this study will assist policymakers and transportation agencies to revise policies for deploying autonomous shuttles and for planning road infrastructures for shared road-use of autonomous shuttles and human driven vehicles.

NAVYA, an autonomous mobility systems leader, announces a new partnership with Inverness Campus to deploy a new project with a Navya Autonom shuttle. Inverness Campus is hosting the first Autonomous Vehicle (AV) passenger service pilot in Scotland. The AV vehicle has arrived in the Highlands and the eagerly awaited trials are now underway and will continue until March, next year. Promoting the scheme is HITRANS, the regional transport partnership for the Highlands and Islands, which is committed to encouraging multi-modal travel and moving away from private car use. HITRANS has attracted European funding – through the Planning for Autonomous Vehicles (PAV) project, funded by the Interreg North Sea Region Programme – and is working with a number of partners to deliver the project.

The future of (not) driving is genuinely just around the corner. The Toyota Mobility Foundation, in partnership with Energy Systems Network, the Indiana Development Corporation, and May Mobility, has launched an autonomous vehicle shuttle service in Indianapolis. The service is free and kicked off on June 1. It serves downtown Indianapolis and the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis community using five Lexus RX 450h SUVs and a single wheelchair-accessible Polaris GEM shuttle. Toyota says the shuttles will run on Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. until Nov. 19, 2021.

Climate change is far and away the greatest threat of the modern human era -- a crisis that will only get worse the longer we dither -- with American car culture as a major contributor to the nation's greenhouse emissions. But carbon-neutralizing energy and solutions are already on the horizon and, in some more developed countries like Sweden, are already being deployed. In his latest book, Our Livable World, science and technology analyst Marc Shaus, takes readers on a fascinating tour of the emerging tools -- from "smart highways" to jet fuel made from trash -- that will not only help curb climate change but perhaps even usher in a new, more sustainable, livable world. The following excerpt is reprinted from Our Livable World: How Scientists Today Are Creating the Clean Earth of Tomorrow by Marc Shaus. Reprinted with permission of Diversion Books.

Ariel Moore exhaled sharply and lifted her arms to the sky. "I have arrived alive!" she said to no one in particular. This should not be notable. Moore just took a half-mile ride in a six-seat shuttle, one of several that run in a loop between her office in downtown Detroit and the garage where she parks her car. But on that sunny June day, she and her colleagues at real estate company Bedrock also did something quietly remarkable.

Fingers fly and eyes meet. This orchestra may seem a mess to anyone stuck in the pit at rush hour, but for the most part, it works. Humans may not excel as drivers when it comes to paying attention or keeping calm, but we're masters of communication, even when stuck in our metal boxes. Robots offer this resume in reverse: all-stars when it comes to defeating distraction, noobs when it comes to negotiating the human-filled environment. And for the folks aiming to deploy fleets of self-driving cars into that chaos, this is a problem.

Las Vegas' self-driving shuttle service marked its return by getting into a minor collision, according to local NBC station KSNV News 3. French startup Navya's autonomous electric vehicle shuffles at around 15 MPH on a 0.6 mile circuit in the downtown Fremont East district. But, just an hour into its year-long trial (which follows a successful stint in January) the shuttle was hit by a delivery truck that was backing up. None of the eight passengers aboard the driverless vehicle suffered injuries and neither did the truck driver. Instead, the front bumper of the shuttle took the brunt of the damage. A spokesperson for AAA, which is sponsoring the latest pilot program, said on Twitter that the accident was due to "human error" on the part of the truck driver.

The Navya Arma, a 15-passenger electric shuttle takes members of the media on a two loop tour of the streets of Mcity on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Friday, December 9, 2016. Mcity will launch a driverless shuttle service on the University of Michigan's North Campus in Ann Arbor beginning in the fall of 2017. The electric shuttles are made by French startup NAVYA and are on display on June 21, 2017. The service will use two fully-automated, 15-passenger, all-electric shuttles manufactured by French firm Navya to transport students, faculty, and staff between U-M's engineering campus and the university's North Campus Research Complex. The driverless shuttles, the first of their kind in Michigan, will drive on University of Michigan roadways, putting them in the mix at times with regular vehicles driven by the public as they traverse a 2-mile circular route every 10 minutes.

Ford has agreed to acquire Chariot, an on-demand shuttle service based in San Francisco. This morning, the automaker said it would expand Chariot's shuttle service beyond San Francisco to at least five more markets in the next 18 months. At the moment, Chariot operates 100 Ford Transit shuttles along 28 routes in the Bay Area. It chooses routes by collecting votes from potential riders, but Ford also said it will move to a more complex algorithm in the future. The goal of a service like this is to fill the gap between taxi and bus services, which are often woefully inadequate for point-to-point transportation in some cities.