November 07, 2011
by
Ernie Johnston
Self-driving cars with Google Fiber & Integrated Roadways' Intelligent Pavement Systems
Using Google Fiber, Google's Driverless car program, and Integrated Roadways' modular pavement products featuring embedded intelligent sensor networks, we can provide self-driving car services at five cents per mile for non-commercial users, and five cents per ton-mile for commercial users.
Kansas City has >$120MM unfunded infrastructure liabilities, with no plan to resolve the shortfall. Bond issues are more difficult every day. Fuel tax increases are unpopular and impossible to pass. People will not pay more for existing services. The solution is to provide attractive new services that can bridge the funding gap.
With our proposal, we would install intelligent pavements to support self-driving cars along 50 miles of Kansas City's most heavily trafficked roads. Each mile of pavement would generate approx $1.5MM per year of user fees from subscribers, allowing Kansas City to forever close its funding gap while being the first city in the world to provide a fantastic and highly attractive new service - self-driving cars!