The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Walt Disney World is planning a pilot program to begin later this year to transport Cast Members in cast-only parking lots using autonomous electric vehicles. The company is reportedly in talks with two manufacturers, Local Motors, based in Phoenix, Arizona, and Navya, based in Paris, France. The photo below shows a Navya vehicle, which holds 12-15 passengers.
If the pilot program goes well, the driverless shuttles could be rolled out to public areas in 2018. The state of Florida has relatively few restrictions on driverless vehicle deployment on privately-owned land. The vehicles would be geofenced, which means they would be restricted to designated areas only, which have been fully mapped and loaded into the vehicle’s navigation system. This geofencing, along with cameras, radar, and laser sensors, would ensure the safety of the passengers and those around the vehicle.
It appears that Walt Disney World is finally realizing that the ubiquitous busses used to transport guests are really not that magical, no matter how many colors of LED lights are affixed to the interior. With the rumors of gondolas gaining steam, and now driverless shuttles, it appears we’re heading into a renaissance of cool transportation options at Walt Disney World.
Editor’s Note: Yes, we know how to spell busses. We spell it just like they did in the 50’s, when Disneyland opened.
Yes. Cool now this is something I can enjoy!
Awesome! I can enjoy! Yes Cool!
You can always ride the busses.
Useless story…….who cares.
Useless comment….. who cares?
There’s a lot of bus driver jobs that will be lost of this happens. That’s not very nice. And also I don’t trust anything automatic. Computers make mistakes too.
Progress and innovation costs people jobs, but makes society better, faster, and more affordable. Isn’t it convenient that you can place a phone call without having to speak to a telephone operator even though it was “not very nice” to innovate them out of their jobs? It also doesn’t cost $0.50 per minute to call someone out of town since the labor costs went down.
Easy to say now until your job becomes automated. One has to wonder how much better society will be when no one has a job because it’s been replaced by a computer. Won’t even be able to purchase a burger from that fancy new automated McDonald’s down the street. The reality behind this story is that this is a continuation of a disturbing trend that Disney has been practicing for a while now. Their parks and resorts division isn’t able to keep up with the unrealistic profit margins set by the executives who are rejoicing over the success from their numerous movie studios and are therefor forced to smudge the numbers by decreasing operation costs. A smart business decision as a company, but not very nice to the cast members.
Unsafe. I can bet that these driverless vans will be part of a new epidemic “Disney’s Killer Cars”. I predict that from its first run until the end of 2018 that there will be fatalities.
Trump needs to get involved and create a driverless car tax on companies that feel that hiring people for driving will save them money.
Make America Great Again
Hire American Make American
Two thumbs down, Disney destroys jobs with automatic driverless cars.
Quick correction from first comment. “Not hiring people will save them money.”
Where’s the PeopleMover? That’s what I always wanted to jump on out in the parking lot.
need more monorail tracks, i don’t see how that is Cheaper..lol I’m just a Monorail fan boy
Any idea on the cost of this project?