{"id":19997,"date":"2025-06-27T20:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T20:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/19997\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T20:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T20:42:09","slug":"jtas-driverless-navi-van-service-starts-downtown-on-june-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/19997\/","title":{"rendered":"JTA\u2019s driverless Navi van service starts Downtown on June 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Starting June 30, you can catch a ride aboard one of Jacksonville Transportation Authority\u2019s driverless passenger vans in Downtown Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

The JTA held a ribbon-cutting June 27 at VyStar Ballpark to announce the launch of its Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation service.<\/p>\n

The Sports Complex is one of the 12 stops the autonomous vehicles will make every seven minutes. While a computer will be navigating, a JTA employee will be aboard the vans to take control if there is an issue.<\/p>\n

It is the nation\u2019s first permanent public autonomous vehicle service. Other driverless ride services, like Tesla\u2019s Robotaxi and Google\u2019s Waymo, are private enterprises.<\/p>\n

Navi is part of JTA\u2019s Ultimate Urban Circulator system, a 10-year plan that will modernize public transportation around the expanded Downtown area that will include Springfield, Riverside and San Marco.<\/p>\n

The first Navi phase will run on Bay Street from LaVilla, where the new University of Florida graduate campus is planned, east to the Sports Complex.<\/p>\n

NAVI map (Jacksonville Daily Record)<\/p>\n

The stretch, called the Bay Street Innovation Corridor, will stop to provide a convenient walk to restaurants, bars and nightlife spots, arts and culture facilities, parks, hotels and shopping opportunities along the route, according to the JTA.<\/p>\n

The service will be free from June 30 to Sept. 30. After that, it will cost $1.75 per passenger. It will operate 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday.<\/p>\n

The Navi vehicles are Ford E-Transit vans equipped with an autonomous driving kit. They meet Buy America Act and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.<\/p>\n

The Navi vehicles are operated and serviced at the new $40.5 million Autonomous Innovation Center at 650 W. Bay St.<\/p>\n

The service will roll out with eight vehicles, costing $392,000 each. There will be 14 vehicles in the fleet when its complete, JTA documents report.<\/p>\n

Mayor Donna Deegan took the crowd at the ribbon-cutting on a trip in the near future. She imagined UF students finishing classes and taking a Navi to Intuition Brewery or Manifest Distillery and then finishing the evening at a nightspot on Bay Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t sound like a boring city to me,\u201d she said, referencing a recent survey that found Jacksonville to be the most boring city in the nation.<\/p>\n

Each Navi vehicle can carry nine passengers. Seats are equipped with seat belts and are ADA compliant. The route has been mapped out to the inch, JTA CEO Nat Ford said.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine it is on virtual rails. So we are driving a specific route on the Bay Street, Innovation Corridor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know at any instant in time exactly where the vehicles are, exactly where the vehicles can be, and that helps us deploy these without additional infrastructure, in a very, very safe and predictable format.\u201d<\/p>\n

JTA ambassadors will be on each Navi vehicle to answer questions, request survey participation from riders and to take over operating the vehicle is there is an unforeseen obstacle, road closure for construction or other delay.<\/p>\n

The vehicles will have 10 cameras, radar and satellite receivers. The braking reaction time is three times faster than that of a human driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put that in maybe lay person\u2019s terms, that\u2019s the equivalent of 10 sets of eyes that are constantly surveying the area and responding to and ultimately directing the vehicle whether it needs to slow, stop or avoid an incident. That\u2019s substantially more visibility than a human will ever have in a vehicle,\u201d said Joe Moye, founding CEO of Beep, the company that manufactures and operates the Navi navigation system.<\/p>\n

The stops will be lighted and also have cameras.<\/p>\n

The (stops) will be the most lit, the most monitored and the safest area of our city,\u201d Moye said.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine the Autonomous Innovation Center, where we are monitoring inside the vehicles and outside the vehicles where they can immediately respond if there\u2019s a health event or if there\u2019s a safety event. It\u2019s impeccable technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Navi project began in 2020. The Bay Street Innovation Corridor route cost $65 million. That comprises $39.5 million in local, $13 million in state and $12.5 million in federal funding.<\/p>\n

The estimated total cost of the Ultimate Urban Circulator system is up to $400 million. <\/p>\n

The local funding is from a gas tax increase the Jacksonville City Council approved in 2021 when Lenny Curry was mayor.<\/p>\n

The Navi project led to Germany-based Holon, a manufacturer of autonomous electric shuttles, to announce plans for a $100 million manufacturing facility in North Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

JTA has reserved 100 vehicles from Holon, including an initial batch of 14 that will be purchased at $409,000 each.<\/p>\n

JTA will take delivery of its first Holon vehicles in 2027. <\/p>\n

The factory is expected to bring $300 million in economic impact to the city, Deegan said.<\/p>\n

The Holon project is receiving city and state incentives. The state is providing an $8 million incentive award and a tax credit. Jacksonville is contributing $7.7 million in property and training grants.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Starting June 30, you can catch a ride aboard one of Jacksonville Transportation Authority\u2019s driverless…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,18605,8314,3188,723,7310,18708,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-19997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-downtown-jacksonville","10":"tag-duval-county","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-jta","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114757274432836080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}