May Mobility has announced the launch of its first rider-only transit service in Sun City, Arizona.
Starting this month, May Mobility will operate autonomous vehicles on public roads in Sun City without an operator present in the driver’s seat.
This service, which will operate daily during the week, will be available to individuals in the company’s Early Riders programme.
The vehicles will use May Mobility’s Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology, which analyses thousands of possible scenarios each second by running real-time, on-board simulations. This enables the system to provide a safe and reliable ride, even when the vehicle encounters an unknown scenario.
While effectively handling and learning from edge cases, MPDM will also allow the company to scale its operations more efficiently and rapidly than would otherwise be possible.
Indeed, May Mobility states that Sun City is the first of many communities globally where it plans to launch its rider-only transit services.
Anna Brunelle, chief financial officer of May Mobility said:May Mobility has built a more scalable autonomy solution at a fraction of the cost of other systems of a similar maturity. And as we continue to expand and improve our driverless operational design domain, we step closer to our goal of being the first profitable AV company.
Prior to transitioning to rider-only services, May Mobility vehicles with a safety operator onboard began operating on public roads in Sun City from April 2023.
The service operated Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicles and leveraged Via’s transit technology to provide on-demand transportation between resident complexes, medical centres and other key locations in the retirement community of Sun City.
These operations were designed to provide the ageing population with greater freedom through safe and reliable mobility options.
The feedback and lessons learned from this service will now help shape the company’s rider-only operations.
Edwin Olson, CEO and co-founder of May Mobility said:Today, we take the key step of beginning rider-only operations, a cornerstone for our commercial growth and expansion moving forward. We believe it is critical to work closely with our key strategic partners, regulators, insurers, and riders, as we roll out our technology step-by-step.
