One of JTA's new autonomous electric vans is tested along East Bay Street. An attendant is on board just in case anything goes wrong. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on March 5, 2025 at 10:53 am
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You may not have noticed it, but a driverless electric van is now motoring down Bay Street in Downtown Jacksonville.
The van is the first step toward a fleet of autonomous vehicles that the Jacksonville Transportation Authority calls the Ultimate Urban Circulator, or U2C for short. It’s a system that could revolutionize mass transit locally with service to Downtown, San Marco, Riverside and Springfield.
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Equipped with sensors, cameras and other gear, the Ford e-Transit van travels Bay Street from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to test how it performs on the 3.2-mile stretch between LaVilla and EverBank Stadium. A staffer from the Jacksonville Transit Authority sits in the front seat to see how the van performs and to take over if there’s a glitch.
“It will stop for pedestrians; it will stop for anybody crossing; it will adjust as vehicles come next to it,” said Greer Johnson Gillis, JTA’s senior vice president and chief infrastructure and development officer. “The driver and pedestrian on Bay Street can expect it to operate just as smooth as you and I drive in our vehicle.”
Before long, a second van will join the test, then the full fleet of 14 vehicles will be tested before the service launches in June.
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How autonomous vehicles work
U2C vehicles have laser, sonar and radar guidance and detection systems to navigate around cars and pedestrians, interact with each other and react to stoplights and crosswalks, JTA says.
Pedestrian sensors and high-tech traffic lights are being installed along Bay Street, as are covered U2C stops with benches and automated information kiosks that give directional information.
All of the vans have lifts for riders who are handicapped.
The vehicles will be monitored from the Autonomous Innovation Center, a two-story building under construction at 650 W. Bay St., near Broad and Water streets in LaVilla.
The center’s ground floor will have covered space for the autonomous vehicles where they will quickly recharge between their Downtown trips. Upstairs, staff will monitor the U2C vehicles via their on-board cameras, and other video systems along the route. The central control system will have a rooftop solar microgrid to supply power to its systems as well as to recharge the vehicles.
In the future
When passenger service begins in June, 14 autonomous vans will carry people between the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts area to Everbank Field, Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena and 121 Financial Ballpark. The vehicles, able to travel up to 35 mph, will run every five to seven minutes.
Phase 1 will cost $65 million. A second phase will convert the existing 2.5-mile Skyway system in Downtown and San Marco into an elevated roadway for autonomous vehicles. Ramps will allow autonomous vehicles to travel from Bay Street to the overhead roadways, including stops at the Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center at LaVilla and across the Acosta Bridge to the Southbank.
Once the U2C goes overhead, the Ford vans will be replaced with an autonomous, 15-seat electric people mover made by Holon at Florida’s first autonomous vehicle factory on Jacksonville’s Northside. JTA will become the first American customer to use the driverless vehicles on the U2C’s second phase.
The U2C’s third phase will connect to the city’s Brooklyn and Riverside areas, running on surface streets with an estimated $100 million price tag as project engineering and environmental studies begin.
The estimated cost of all three phases could be as much as $400 million for a full build-out. The first phase’s funding includes a $12.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, $13 million from the Florida Department of Transportation, $1 million from the North Florida Transportation Planning Organization and $22.5 million from JTA, which also is providing in-kind services for work.
The second phase is now in the early stages of planning and design, with an estimated $300 million cost partially funded through the extension of the local option gas tax, with no construction date set yet.
