Atlanta Announces New Pilot Program for an Autonomous Public Transportation System

What Happened?

The city of Atlanta announced it will launch a new pilot program for an autonomous public transportation system that can move large numbers of passengers daily at low prices.

Glydways, a California company behind the new autonomous transit system, recently broke ground on the initial part of the effort, which, when completed, will connect the Atlanta SkyTrain at the Georgia International Convention Center to the Gateway Center Arena. 

The pilot program is scheduled to open to the public in December 2026. Glydways has also signed agreements with Dubai to build a similar system there. 

Why it Matters

The advantage of the Glydways system is what the company calls ‘net-new capacity’ for citywide transportation. Autonomous cars are already on the roads in cities like San Francisco and Phoenix, but they use the same roadways as conventional cars, which can increase the net number of vehicles on those highways. The Glydways system claims to use dedicated bandwidth that doesn’t compete with already existing roadways.

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In the same way many city rail lines are separate from roadways used by automobiles, the Glydways system would use its own dedicated trail-like transportation system linking a city together. According to New Atlas, the company claims its scaled system has the potential to move ‘10,000 people per hour through a guideway just 2 m (6.6 ft) wide,’ matching light rail but without the massive infrastructure costs or decade-long construction timelines.

Over half of all human beings now live in urban areas, and that number is expected to increase in the next decade. Swelling populations have strained existing infrastructure, including modes of transportation, especially in megacities, defined as urban areas with more than ten million residents. In 1950, there were only two megacities on earth, but today there are forty, and by 2030, there may be as many as fifty, according to recent projections.

Existing transportation systems can be upgraded and expanded, but even with improvements, they will probably not by themselves be able to keep up with the increasing volume of people expected to live in urban areas. Because of that, city planners are looking for potential solutions like the system offered by Glydways. Glydways has yet to reveal the actual cost of its system, but it claims the new system is much cheaper than rail lines or subways. 

Pilot programs like the one in Atlanta this year are important because they will provide Glydways with the chance to prove its system can deliver what it promises. If successful, other cities may seek to install systems of their own.

How it Affects You

Traffic and congestion are major problems facing urban areas, costing cities millions of dollars each year to maintain and thousands of hours of lost time for commuters.

By turning individual autonomous vehicles into a dedicated network, the Glydways system could represent the next step in the evolution of autonomous urban transportation. Even if it fails, the lessons learned could still help usher in a new generation of city transit. 

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