All aboard: Driverless shuttles are coming to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens.
Two self-driving shuttles that can carry eight seated passengers each will start transporting customers for free around one of the airport’s massive parking lots for the first time next week as part of a pilot program testing the technology, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The shuttles, which are owned by New Zealand-based company Ohmio, are planned to be in service through the summer and will have signage indicating they’re autonomous. They will also be staffed by on-board safety attendants, who will greet and guide riders and currently serve as JFK shuttle bus drivers contracted through a different company.
It’s the next step in a series of tests of self-driving vehicles at local airports run by the Port Authority, officials said. Previous tests, including at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport, were done in empty parking lots without customers aboard.
Travelers dropping off or picking up their cars at JFK’s Parking Lot 9 — an enormous long-term parking lot connected to the AirTrain’s Lefferts Boulevard and Howard Beach stations — will be able to hop on the autonomous shuttles at any of the same more than dozen stops serviced by human-driven ones.
Seth Wainer, program director for innovation at the Port Authority, said the goal is to serve more of the airport’s customers. He said the agency will not reduce its staffing because of the technology.
“We foresee a situation where vehicles can safely convey passengers all over the airport footprint, and our hope here is that instead of having just one driver stuck in one vehicle, we can have one driver supervising more than one vehicle and really paying attention to the folks actually getting on and getting off,” he said.
Next week the blue and yellow shuttles will drive around the lot one at a time, but more will be added later to create “platoons,” Wainer added. This marks only the second time that self-driving vehicles have been publicly tested in New York City after a program at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 2019, according to Port Authority officials.
The agency describes the shuttles as “shaped like giant lima beans with wheels” that turn on with the touch of a button and, when driven manually, are controlled with a joystick. They include standing room for more than eight passengers, though during the testing riders will be asked to sit and use seat belts for their safety.
The Port Authority has tested self-driving vehicles since 2022, when it piloted autonomous buses in its exclusive bus lane in and out of the Lincoln Tunnel, and last year at JFK, when it began testing a platoon of Ohmio shuttles.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration signed off on the use of the shuttles for passenger service at the airport’s Parking Lot 9, according to the authority.
