To guide driverless cars, Volvo Car Group has been experimenting with creating a corridor of magnets that are placed in the pavement. The automaker says magnets are better than GPS or cameras for pointing the way because they are not as easily affected by poor weather.

"The magnets create an invisible ‘railway’ that literally paves the way for a positioning inaccuracy of less than (four inches). We have tested the technology at a variety of speeds and the results so far are promising," says Jonas Ekmark, preventive safety leader at Volvo, in a statement.

Volvo Cars has a project underway in which in which 100 self-driving Volvo cars will use public roads around the Swedish city of Gothenburg.

via Magnetic roads could guide driverless cars.

They are missing a citation! CA PATH designed and implemented the Magnetic Guidance System (MGS) back in 1997.

I think I saw something like this in my 7th grade Technology Education class:

Here’s an innovation in bus usage that’s so smart we’re not sure it can even work: Helsinki’s Kutsuplus lets you select your pick-up and drop-off locations and times, using a phone app, and then sends out a bus to take you exactly where you need to go.

You don’t get the bus to yourself, of course; Kutsuplus cleverly bundles you with other people going the same way. But it beats standing on a street corner forever waiting for a bus that will take a roundabout route to your destination. And while it’s a little more expensive than a standard bus ride — the equivalent of about $5 base price plus $2 per two miles, while most bus rides would be $2.75-$5.50 — it’s still significantly cheaper than a taxi.

via Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit | Grist.

Yesssssssss.

For more information, see this paper (not so technical).

By the end of the year, the U.S. Department of Motor Vehicles DMV [of California] must write rules to regulate autonomous cars

Among the complex questions officials sought to unravel:

• How will the state know the cars are safe?
• Does a driver even need to be behind the wheel?
• Can manufacturers mine data from onboard computers to make product pitches based on where the car goes or set insurance rates based on how it is driven?
• Do owners get docked points on their license if they send a car to park itself and it slams into another vehicle?

Much of the initial discussion Tuesday focused on privacy concerns.

via California given deadline on plan to integrate driverless cars onto public roads | Driving.

KPIX 5 has learned that Google has contracted with a private firm to provide a catamaran to ferry its workers from San Francisco to Redwood City.
The service started Monday and the catamaran – the Triumphant which holds 149 passengers – runs two trips in the morning from San Francisco to Redwood City and two return trips in the evening. The ride takes about 47 minutes each way.

As for whether Google has the proper permits and inspections for the ferry service, the Coast Guard told KPIX 5 if Google is not charging employees for the service, the ferry would be treated the same as a recreational vessel and would not require an inspection.

via Google Launches Private SF Bay Ferry Service To Shuttle Workers « CBS San Francisco.

Regional transportation officials approved a spending strategy Wednesday that will concentrate the bulk of spending on public transportation for the next four decades on the Bay Area’s largest systems: Muni, BART, AC Transit and, to a lesser degree, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

via Bay Area sets transit spending targets – SFGate.

Well, this sounds good!