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The Economic Times
The Economic Times
National
Team Global

In 1975, West Virginia University opened a driverless transit system built as an experiment; 50 years later, its 67 cars have carried over 100 million trips

West Virginia University West Virginia WVU

More than half a century ago, a concept that still seems like science fiction today was tried out in a small university town in West Virginia: driverless cars, taking people wherever they wanted to go. Researchers Steve Raney and Stanley Young reported in a paper presented at the Transportation Research Board's 2005 meeting that this small campus experiment has grown into one of the longest continuously running automated transit systems in the world. It's called the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, and it's still in operation at West Virginia University (WVU) today.

A traffic problem requiring a bold solution

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