How autonomous vehicles are making transportation more inclusive

Access to reliable transit is a major issue in today's world, especially for people with disabilities, the elderly or residents living in underserved communities. Public transport in particular can be difficult to use for these individuals; what's more, specialized services often come with their own barriers, such as added costs and limited availability.

At May Mobility, we’re committed to working with communities to address those issues directly while complementing services already in place. Two of our site deployments—goMARTI in Grand Rapids, Minnesota and RAPID in Arlington, Texas—demonstrate the ways in which autonomous vehicles (AVs) can successfully support individuals in communities who need reliable transportation the most.

Launched in October 2022, goMARTI offers free, autonomous, on-demand rides for everyone. We wanted to show the world that AVs are a viable choice of transportation in rural communities and this deployment hasn’t disappointed. By engaging with and educating the local community in Grand Rapids, the service has moved more than 1,500 riders over 17,000 miles in its first six months, and 24 percent of rides have included wheelchair users.

In Arlington, introducing May Mobility’s AVs has helped to fill critical transit gaps. First-year results show that more than 60 percent of riders used RAPID to access essential destinations across the city. By improving equitable access to transportation, including for those without a personal vehicle, the AVs were averaging close to 200 rides per day (half of which were shared rides) within the first year.

When you turn to May Mobility, you can feel assured that we can help make your transit system more sustainable, safe, accessible and equitable through our autonomous vehicle technology. To learn more about how autonomous vehicles can make transportation more inclusive and the future May Mobility is creating, download this white paper by Cities Today.

For more information on our business, deployments and technology, visit our Resources page.

We’d like to thank our peers at Cities Today for their work in producing this white paper and our partners in Grand Rapids and Arlington for their contributions.