Ford Wants To Reduce Traffic Congestion In Austin With Its Self-Driving Vehicles

Approximately 100 people move into the Austin area each day, and as you can imagine, this population explosion causes a lot of traffic. That’s one of the reasons Ford has announced it’s brining its self-driving vehicles to the city in 2021.

Ford announced plans to launch commercial services in the Texas capitol at a press conference with Mayor Steve Adler and autonomous technology partner Argo AI earlier today. Rapid growth, strained infrastructure, and progressive leadership–not to mention its lack of snow–makes Austin an ideal launching ground for the company’s self-driving vehicles, said Sherif Marakby, chief executive of Ford Autonomous Vehicles, in a phone interview with Forbes.

The company has been testing self-driving delivery services in Miami and Washington, D.C., but it didn’t announce what type of commercial services it will bring to Austin.

“Our strategy is to have some segments moving people and a version of the purpose-built vehicle moving goods,” says Marakby.

While other autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo and Cruise are developing robo-taxi services, Marakby says the company likely will be focusing on high-occupancy transportation solutions that help with congestion.

“Autonomous vehicles can help a city or it can hurt a city depending on how you approach it,” he explains.

Marakaby stops short of calling it a bus or a shuttle, saying that the company hasn’t finalized any plans and doesn’t want to be locked into any one particular service.

“The needs could be different when you have college campuses in the middle of the city that’s different than if you have a regular urban area with restaurants,” he says.

In the mean time, engineers with Argo AI will begin mapping the city streets and learn what those needs are.