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Knoxville becoming hub for development of self-driving cars

The city's first self-driving trolley will be delivered next month.

KNOXVILLE — The future of driving is almost here.

Imagine cruising through World's Fair Park or catching a ride home from a UT football game in a car without a driver. Soon, it may be a reality.

"Knoxville is getting ready to receive our first autonomous vehicle that we've purchased," said Jeff Branham, the Traffic Engineering Chief for the City of Knoxville. "The first phase will be more of a demonstration deployment where we have a closed loop, a protected loop where we have one loading and unloading point."

After the trolley passes its safety tests, the city plans to use it for special events on closed circuits. It will not be driving on the streets with cars anytime soon.

A prototype of Olli the trolley was unveiled last September. It's built by Knoxville based Local Motors. Branham said the city's close location to places like the Oak Ridge National Lab have helped make it a development hub for autonomous vehicles.

"We are located in an area that has great innovation and great innovators here," he said.

As quick as the technology is evolving, experts say it'll still be several years before everyone is driving around in autonomous cars.

"As far as seeing them on the streets everyday, I think we've still got a ways to go," said David Clarke, the Director of the UT Center of Transportation Research. "The human brain which we're trying to reproduce the thought process of in an autonomous car is something we really don't understand."

Tennessee along with 20 other states have laws allowing self driving cars.

The Uber self-driving car crash in Arizona that killed a pedestrian is the first known fatality involving a fully autonomous car.

Knoxville's traffic department said an average of three people die each year in collisions involving pedestrians and normal cars in the city.

"People could still step out in front of an autonomous car and be struck by it and the laws of physics would be such that the car can't react," Clarke said.

The city of Knoxville hopes to receive the Olli trolley in late April.

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