Oh, the joys of the school bus. Up at five in the morning, to be out to a misting, miserable bus stop to wait for a Gillig bus that could be about forty years old to come lumbering up, where I’d hop on board, enjoy the hellscape that is sixty-odd kids all heading to school. Shoot me now…if there was ever a better argument for getting your driver’s license as soon as humanely possible, it was to cut your reliance on the first taste of public transportation, the point where your interaction with your peers proved to be something between tolerable and absolutely aggravating. And we haven’t even started talking about the bus drivers, those who ruled the buses with iron fists and the “write-up” paperwork that haunted you, because it went straight to the school authorities, then to your parents. Nope, nothing fond about school bus memories here, and not much has changed, really, since the last time I rode the school bus back in 1999.

That is, unless you lived in the Babcock Ranch development near Fort Meyers, Florida. Babcock Ranch is a 17,000 acre planned community that is designed as the first solar-powered community in the country. As such, every point of planning within the community has to be taken into consideration, including transportation. Part of that vision is to have “shared, sustainable and autonomous” transportation services that offer…and I’m using their words here…”Mobility as a Service”, or subscription mobility, for all of the residents. Enter Transdev North America, the local arm of a French autonomous vehicle company that per their website, will “begin offering students rides to and from school aboard an autonomous vehicle. School shuttle service is part of an overall strategic plan to deliver autonomous technology designed around the needs of Babcock Ranch residents.”

There are plenty of autonomous testing programs within the United States, sure. Everything from semi-trucks to autonomous cabs are being studied while chalking up the miles, But nowhere is there a program for an in-service autonomous school bus that is actually hauling children to school. Yet yesterday the NHTSA had to put a halt to Transdev North America’s program, which saw the Transdev EZ10 Generation II shuttles actually in service. The NHTSA had allowed Transdev to import the shuttles for testing and demonstration reasons, but not for actual service. Transdev has agreed to halt the service, yet has put out statement that while the program was voluntarily stopped, that the service was safe and believed to be within the guidelines of the demonstration and testing guidelines, that the shuttle operated five times with passenger service with the same five students for a three-block-long trip to the school, with a safety monitor on board and a maximum speed of eight miles an hour. Additionally, parents had to give permission for the students to be on board at all.

The most absurd point of all: Three city blocks at eight miles an hour? That might be a bit faster than a walking pace, but seriously…three blocks?!