These vans will operate over the next six months, with a safety driver on board, and will travel between an office park and a nearby dining area and entertainment complex.
Conway Chen, vice president at Drive.ai, says the service has been designed around the Uber incident.
"It is something that we have absolutely designed around, and we are taking every precaution that we can to make sure that type of incident doesn't happen,” Chen adds.
These vans come with radar on the grill, infrared Lidar sensors and ten cameras on the roof to provide a 360-degree view of the road. The vehicles also feature screens on their sides, front and rear to alert pedestrians and drivers of their movements.
Drive.ai intends to add more destinations over the next six months and phase out the safety driver.
Drive.ai is using self-driving vans to carry passengers on a near two-mile route in Frisco, Texas. According to a report by <%$Linker:2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external CBS News false https://www.cbsnews.com/news/self-driving-passenger-vans-hit-the-road-in-texas-city/ false false %>, the company is the first to launch such a test since an 8336 Uber vehicle driving in autonomous mode killed a pedestrian in <%$Linker:2 Internal <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 4 35413 0 link-external Arizona false /categories/utc/news/uber-ends-self-driving-programme-in-arizona/ false false %>.
