Visitors to Jacksonville, Florida’s revitalised waterfront, will soon be able to experience fully autonomous public transit through a collaboration between T-Mobile and Miller Electric.

They aim to use a 5G private network to connect a fleet of autonomous vehicles (AVs) along the city’s waterfront and urban core as part of Jacksonville’s Ultimate Urban Circulator programme.

Jacksonville-based Miller Electric will use a 5G private network from T-Mobile to support the operations of the bus-shaped, fully autonomous shuttles that will transport visitors along a 5km stretch from the home of the city’s professional football team, EverBank Stadium, to the new waterfront hub.

“5G connectivity provides the highest bandwidth and lowest latency communication between the AVs and the control centre,” said Craig Bowman, director of technology at Miller Electric. “This will enable the vehicles to navigate the streets alongside other vehicle traffic and will ensure the bandwidth we need is available to stream real-time video surveillance and two-way audio and video communications between passengers and employees.”

The 5G technology can be key for cities and organisations looking to implement smart city initiatives such as AVs. Other options, such as wifi, have limited reach and can limit the reliability and scalability of an autonomous fleet.

The T-Mobile 5G private network connection will deliver secure, reliable two-way communications between the shuttles and the command centre. This includes real-time telemetry data from onboard sensors as well as audio and video feeds to connect employees with passengers.

“5G is the key that will unlock the autonomous vehicle future that science fiction has teased us with for years,” said Mishka Dehghan, senior vice president at T-Mobile. “Because T-Mobile 5G offers the flexibility to build a 5G private network, our customers can actually build the future they envision, not just imagine it. I’m excited to see how this will support a thriving urban corridor and give visitors convenient and futuristic transportation options.”

The 5G private network infrastructure will be built alongside the already planned power and fibre that support the rest of the waterfront project. This means T-Mobile (www.t-mobile.com/business) can deliver the network performance and security Miller Electric (www.mecojax.com) requires for the AVs into the future without any additional infrastructure.

The autonomous shuttles are projected to be on the road by mid 2025 and represent the first out of three phases of the city’s planned Ultimate Urban Circulator (u2c.jtafla.com). This initial phase lays the foundation for the expansion of automated shuttles to connect to adjoining neighbourhoods.