Michigan-based autonomous vehicle (AV) technology company May Mobility has launched its first driverless service for riders on public roads in Sun City, Arizona.

The rider-only vehicles leverage May Mobility’s proprietary multi-policy decision-making (MPDM) technology and will operate daily during the week without an operator sitting in the driver’s seat. Sun City is the first of many communities globally where May Mobility aims to launch its rider-only transit services to transform cities by providing accessible, safe and reliable transportation.

“Today, we take the key step of beginning rider-only operations, a cornerstone for our commercial growth and expansion moving forward,” said Edwin Olson, CEO of May Mobility. “We believe it is critical to work closely with our key strategic partners, regulators, insurers and riders as we roll out our technology step by step.”

The MPDM system is designed to solve the problem of making safe driving decisions under uncertainty, including when the vehicle encounters an unknown scenario. MPDM runs real-time, on-board simulations to analyse thousands of possible scenarios every second, choosing the safest one to execute. This approach to autonomous technology makes the vehicles adept at handling edge cases and enables the company to scale more efficiently and quickly than would otherwise be possible.

“May Mobility has built more scalable autonomy at a fraction of the cost of other systems of a similar maturity,” said Anna Brunelle, chief financial officer of May Mobility. “And as we continue to expand and improve our driverless operational design domain, we step closer to our goal of being the first profitable AV company.”

Before transitioning to its rider-only service, May Mobility vehicles began operating on public roads in Sun City with a safety operator in April 2023. The company launched its on-demand autonomous public transit service with TransitTech company Via to serve the retirement community of Sun City and provide greater access to affordable mobility with shared, on-demand AVs. The service was designed to allow the aging population to gain increased freedom and mobility safely and reliably. The lessons from this service set the foundation for the transition to a safe rider-only service designed to meet the needs of the local community.

Through May Mobility’s first rider-only service, a select group of early riders in Sun City will have the ability to request a pickup in one of May Mobility’s Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicles from a variety of stops. The rider-only service will initially operate on public roads Monday to Friday in the afternoon and will be available at no cost to early riders.

The rider-only service will be powered by Via (info.ridewithvia.com) and will serve resident complexes, medical centres and other key locations. The early riders consist of a group of Sun City residents with varying transportation needs. Their feedback will help shape how the company continues to ramp up rider-only operations, keeping safety in mind at every step, and how AVs can be successfully used in public transit.

May Mobility expects to expand its rider-only services as part of its plan to improve transportation across markets.

The company’s public sector go-to-market strategy is to partner directly with stakeholders such as cities, transit agencies, municipalities and government agencies to identify gaps in public transportation systems and solve real transportation problems for communities. Its shift to rider-only operations is a step toward accomplishing those goals.

May Mobility (www.maymobility.com) develops AV technology and deploys fleets of vehicles to municipal and business users. Its MPDM system is at the core of its mission to help make cities safer, greener and more accessible. MPDM’s has delivered more than 350,000 autonomy-enabled rides in several public transit applications across the USA and Japan.