Last updated: 2/2/23

Autonomous vehicles: Boston’s approach

Learn more about our plans for testing autonomous vehicles, and their potential future in the City of Boston.

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The Vision

Zero deaths. Zero Injuries. Zero disparities. Zero emissions. Zero Stress. This is Boston's vision for our transportation future.

Autonomous vehicles offer immense promise to help us get closer to these goals. However, the promise of these vehicles isn't a given. They could displace an important workforce and encourage both sprawl and congestion. That’s why we launched an autonomous vehicle testing program.

We want to shape the development of technology and policy to deliver on the potential promise — and not the potential drawbacks.

What can be achieved?

Safety. Access. Reliability.

During our Go Boston 2030 planning, these were the values Boston residents told us they wanted for their transportation system to embody.

Safer Streets:

Some of crashes on our streets are caused by human error or by impaired drivers. The promise of autonomous vehicles is to significantly reduce the number of serious crashes.

Better Access:

Who stands to benefit most from this technology if it’s applied the right way? Many people, including:

the aging population and those with visual impairments
those looking to reduce the burden of personal vehicle ownership, and
those without access to rapid transit.

Better reliability:

We can reduce the number of vehicles on our roadways through the adoption of shared fleets of autonomous vehicles. This frees up space for other uses, other travel modes, and creates more predictable travel times.

Self-driving vehicle testing

We are taking a graduated approach to AV testing in Boston.

At first, any company will be constrained in the time, place, and manner of their testing. Before testing on streets, companies must meet — off-street — our important standards, including:

ease of manual takeover from autonomous mode
emergency braking and emergency stop functionality, and
basic driving capabilities, such as staying within a lane.

We’ll only allow testing during good weather and daylight hours in early phases. Once a company reaches certain milestones, we will allow them to begin testing::

in other areas of Boston
at night-time, and
during inclement weather.

Currently, vehicle testing in Boston includes the use of a safety driver focused on roadway activity. There is also a safety engineer monitoring the vehicle's software.

Current AV testing zones

Initial on-street testing occurs within the City's Raymond Flynn Marine Park in the Innovation District. After meeting test plan milestones, partners can request to expand out of the Marine Park in subsequent phases.

The majority of testing is currently occurring in the South Boston Waterfront. Motional (formerly Aptiv and nuTonomy) has approval for mapping additional neighborhoods in the City. In Fall 2021, Motional began user interface and experience testing, where the vehicle is piloted by a human driver at all times, in other neighborhoods, including: Downtown, North End, Seaport, Fort Point, Roxbury, Dorchester, South Boston, Back Bay, South End, Chinatown, Mission Hill, and Longwood/Fenway neighborhoods. There is not currently autonomous testing in these areas.

Vehicle Testing: Safety Protocols

We believe that safety is paramount in the testing of autonomous vehicles.

The City of Boston and our partners at MassDOT have put together a number of safety checks in the application process and within the administration of the phased testing program.

Companies must provide:

a history of their testing practices
documentation of extensive off-street and previous on-street testing
compliance with federal safety guidelines for autonomous vehicles, and
details of safety driver training procedures.

Our testing partners are collaborative in this effort and often exceed the safety standards put in place.

More safety details

Current testing partners

Contact: New Urban Mechanics

MOTIONAL

The City approved Motional (formerly nuTonomy & Aptiv) for on-street testing in December 2016. This was expanded to citywide testing in June 2018. Motional is currently testing in the South Boston Waterfront and mapping portions of South Boston in addition to off-street testing. Motional has approval for testing through January 2024.

Review the related documents section below for more testing details.

Future partners

The City is interested in exploring partnerships and shared research agendas in four areas:

vehicle technology testing focused on Boston’s unique environment
business model exploration that speaks to the goals of Go Boston 2030, and
experiments with connected transportation infrastructure
research and engagement with the public on autonomous mobility and workforce implications.

Please connect with us if you would like to explore the future together.

To begin testing in the City of Boston, a provider must:

Reach out to the City via the email provided on this page to make us aware of your intent
Prepare a testing plan
complete an application with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Complete a memorandum of agreement with the appropriate parties (including the City of Boston if you plan to test within City limits)

In advance of the application to MassDOT, a testing provider needs to agree on a phased testing plan with the City of Boston.

Building Blocks of AV Testing: MOAs, test plans, and testing reports

Documents

General documents

Motional (formerly Aptiv & nuTonomy)

Optimus Ride

From 2017-2021 Optimus Ride was an approved testing partner

City of Boston's thought partners

We’ll be working closely with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MassPort, and area research institutions. However, we’ve also created two formal partnerships to help us think about what autonomous vehicles could mean for cities:

THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

In June 2016, Boston was selected by the World Economic Forum as a focus-city for policy and pilot development of autonomous vehicles. Through this partnership, we worked with:

the World Economic Forum (WEF)
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
international cities, and
mobility industry leaders.

Through that work with the WEF and BCG we produced two reports. Reshaping Urban Mobility with Autonomous Vehicles and Making Autonomous Vehicles a Reality and completed an agent-based model of Boston to reflect a shared autonomous future.

TRANSPORTATION FOR AMERICA

Transportation For America’s Smart City Collaborative share ideas, data, and best practices with 14 other cities across the country. Our specific area in this collaborative is the autonomous vehicle working group.

VOLPE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS CENTER

The City of Boston is part of the Low-speed Automated Shuttle Working Group. This collection of public officials around the country leads shuttle testing work. The working group is chaired and facilitated by the the team at Volpe. The goal is to share learnings and best practices.