The state of Michigan plans to develop what it claims will be the first corridor for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) with the goal of improving transportation for communities.
One key goal of the project, being developed by Cavnue, which will serve as master developer, is to focus on closing the gaps in access to public transit and transportation across the region. Cavnue, a subsidiary of Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), will work with the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), the Michigan Office of Future Mobility and Electrification, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) and industry and local partners.
The project is intended to create lanes that are built specifically to accelerate and enhance the full potential of CAVs. This means Cavnue will work to develop a new type of roadway that combines physical, digital and operational infrastructure to enable a faster and more coordinated dedicated autonomous mobility corridor.
The corridor will connect Detroit and Ann Arbor along a more than 40-mile driverless corridor connecting communities and destinations along Michigan Avenue and Interstate 84 in Wayne County and Washtenaw County. The corridor will allow a mix of CAVs, traditional transit vehicles, shared mobility and freight and personal vehicles to be on the road simultaneously. The corridor includes up to a dozen of opportunity zones where expanded mobility will connect individuals, small business and communities to industrial, technological and academic clusters including test tracks, universities, automotive companies and more, Cavnue said.
Phase One, which will last for about 24 months, will work on technology testing and roadway design as well as exploring different financing models with an aim toward determining project viability. Implementation and construction of the project will be followed in future phases.
“The time has come to start to integrate all of the momentum happening on the vehicle technology side with an equally strong push for innovation on our road assets themselves,” said Brian Barlow, co-founder and co-CEO of SIP, in a statement. “We believe that combining technology and physical infrastructure can help unlock the full potential of CAVs and fundamentally transform mobility to improve safety, congestion, and public transit.”
Michigan partners
To help with the development of the corridor, Ford Motor Company, the University of Michigan and American Center for Mobility (ACM) will lend technology and innovations to the project.
However, Cavnue said it will develop OEM-neutral standards and technology for the implementation of the corridor and permit CAVs meeting safety and other standards to operate on the corridor regardless of manufacturer. As a result, Cavnue will create an advisory committee of automotive and self-driving mobility companies including Argo AI, Arrival, BMW, Honda, Ford, GM, Toyota, TuSimple and Waymo.
Transportation evolution
Michigan and Cavnue said the increase of CAVs can potentially reduce thousands of traffic crashes caused by human error, cut hours commuters stay in traffic and increase shared mobility options. Michigan recorded almost 10,000 fatal automobile crashes in the state in the last decade and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) states 94% of automobile crashes are attributed to human error.
“As the anatomy of vehicles continues to shift toward autonomous driving and electrification, Michigan has an opportunity to not only drive this evolution in the production of vehicles, but also in the very roads they drive on,” said Trevor Pawl, chief mobility officer for the state of Michigan.