And those systems can operate optimally or not optimally.

And a key component of it is how we move around in that.

We should be able to provide

equitable mobility.

Give you a ride from any place,

no matter what your

economic background is,

what you look like, where you come from,

all of that can be programmed

into a vehicle.

Chris Osgood: So, what you're seeing right now

in the screen on the far left

is the regional highway system.

It is moving fairly slowly right now.

Where we often see congestion in the city of Boston

are those places where people are trying to get onto

regional roads, the highway system.

I have the honor of serving as

Mayor Walsh's Chief of Streets,

and we're focused on those nine square miles

of Boston that are our streets.

As we think about the future of the city

and those things that will potentially

most fundamentally change transportation,

autonomous vehicles is at the top of that list.

Chin: There's a heaven-or-hell scenario

that we talk a little bit about,

the autonomy heaven or hell scenario.

The hell scenario is that we have individual

internal-combustion autonomous vehicles.

And eventually we'll have an autonomous traffic jam

full of gas-emitting, fossil-fuel-burning,

single-occupant vehicles that are autonomous.

The heaven scenario is the opposite.

Optimus Ride is based in Boston,

and the reason why we based it there is that

it has all the unique roads, all the unique drivers,

and all the unique weather of Massachusetts,

which allows us to test and really prove

the technology itself.

Jenny Larios Berlin: Optimus Ride wants to provide a shared

electric and autonomous mobility.

We want make sure that folks

aren't being left behind.

People tend to have difficulty

connecting to transportation options

after a 10-minute walking distance.

Chin: So, what if you had, in a self-driving system

that connected you from where you are

to the subway, for example,

a fixed infrastructure like that.

You can have a fleet of vehicles

that can dynamically contract and expand

based on the real demand.

Osgood: Autonomous vehicles can potentially work better

as part of a network and consequently increase

the reliability of travel on our streets.

That is why the city of Boston is really actively engaged

in the testing of autonomous vehicles.

Larios Berlin: So, you're currently in Optimus City.

Optimus City is about 9,000 square feet of space,

which allows us to have our own private test track.

In Massachusetts, you can't actually

do driverless on the public road,

so this gives us an opportunity to do

as much driverless testing as we need to fully vet it

and get it ready for the real world.

Chin: So, we're in the Optimus Ride now,

and the vehicle is programmed to drive autonomously

throughout the entire Seaport of Boston.

We have John and Alfredo, our two test operators.

They're actually not driving at all.

They're monitoring the vehicle.

As we're starting to drive,

and we've been able to map

the entire environment around us.

We're also planning and looking at the trajectory

of all the other objects as well.

And over time, with more and more data,

we're able to then improve the entire

network at a very, very high level.

Osgood: One of the things that we are learning through

the process of having testing on city of Boston streets is

if there are design modifications

that we need to be making to city streets

to have them work for autonomous vehicles.

One of those things would be a digital atlas

of the curb rules of the city.

Potentially a digital layer a vehicle would have

so it knows where in the city of Boston

it could be able to go.

Chin: My view is that you can deploy

this technology in an existing city today

and, over time, that city will evolve.

I also believe that you can design a city today

with autonomous vehicles in mind,

and you would design it very differently

than a city that was pre-automobile

or even post-automobile.

It has the power to do both.

Everyone needs transportation;

everyone needs mobility.

There's a deep correlation between

your mobility and your wealth level too,

so if you're a wealthy person,

you can afford your own car,

you can afford your own private jet,

but if you don't have that,

then you're probably taking a bus for four hours.

Right? And that level of inequity

and the impact that has on not only the people's lives

but also the way you design cities?

That's a future that we have to kind of shape.