Title
Resolution for Joint Participation Agreement (JPA) - Service Development Grant Funds for Regional Transit System (RTS) for the Gainesville Autonomous Transit Shuttle (GAToRS) Project with Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) (B)
This item is a request for a Resolution authorizing the City Manager or his authorized designee to execute a Joint Participation Agreement between the City of Gainesville and FDOT to receive Service Development Grant Funds for the GAToRS Project.
Explanation
The City of Gainesville Regional Transit System (RTS) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) are planning to implement an autonomous transit system near the University of Florida campus within downtown Gainesville. The proposed route for the autonomous transit route circumnavigates the City’s Innovation Square on SE 2nd Avenue, SE 13th Street, SE 4th Avenue and South Main Street.
This project, known as Gainesville Autonomous Transit Shuttle (GAToRS), consists of moving people from the downtown area to the University of Florida (UF) along SE 3rd Street, 5th Avenue, Newell Drive, and University Avenue, in order to learn about public attitudes towards automation in transportation. Additionally, FDOT and RTS seek to document the safety benefits of such a service, and would like to bring Highly Automated Vehicles (HAV) to Gainesville within a Connected Vehicle (CV) environment.
An extensive feasibility study was conducted during spring 2017 by FDOT, including field reviews of potential corridors for the routes, meetings with RTS staff (including drivers), safety and traffic data analyses, review of RTS bus routes, ridership, and hours of operation analysis, pedestrian and other potential hazards, and numerous other factors.
Staff has been working with FDOT to develop a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the project, and intends for external (non-RTS) companies to compete for the opportunity to provide HAV service on the selected route. The service ne...
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