DALLAS (WBAP & KLIF News) — Driverless cars may be coming to North Texas sooner than you think.
The Texas Department of Transportation says a proposal to have Texas cities involved with the testing of self-driving cars was approved on the national level, with Arlington being the one city in North Texas that will have the vehicles on the road.
“We want to be out there,” said Darren Anderson of TxDot. “We want Texas to have a voice in the future of how these things are adapted, become a part of society, and understanding both safety and other beneficial aspects of the technology.”
Anderson says the cars will first be tested on closed courses at three different research facilities in Texas: The Texas A&M Transportation Institute, The University of Texas at Austin Center for Transportation Research, and Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Once they have gone through tests there, he says, the cars will be put on streets in Arlington, ranging from the UTA campus to the I-30 corridor.
Anderson says when they do hit the streets in Arlington, they’ll likely be confined to lanes with traffic cones and followed by maintenance vehicles to ensure other drivers’ safety. The timeline is to have them tested on the closed courses throughout this year and then move them to cities for testing by as early as January 2018.
“[Arlington] sees that they need to be aware and involved from the early stages so they’re not surprised and are prepared as a city,” Anderson said.
