Improve Public Health with Autonomous Transit

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Hidden Benefits of Public Transportation

A recent opinion piece in the The New York Times by neurosurgeon Dr. Jonathan Slotkin brought national attention to a major new safety dataset released by Waymo. The robotaxi company published results from nearly one hundred million driverless miles across four cities, and the numbers present a compelling case for autonomy as a public health tool. Compared with human drivers in the same environments, Waymo vehicles recorded 91% fewer serious injury crashes, 96% fewer injury crashes at intersections, and notable reductions in collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists.

According to the article, this level of crash reduction goes far beyond a technological milestone. It represents a meaningful opportunity to lower rates of trauma, disability, and preventable death. As Slotkin writes, “While many see this as a tech story, I view it as a public health breakthrough.”

If autonomy can reduce severe crashes at this scale, the next question is “how can these gains be realized at the population level?” Which deployment approaches will actually reduce overall traffic exposure and deliver meaningful public health benefits?

🚑Reducing Harm at Scale is a Public Health Priority

Traffic injuries remain one of the most persistent and preventable sources of harm worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unintentional injuries including motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 1 to 44. Globally, the World Health Organization reports that these traffic accidents lead to more than one million deaths and tens of millions of injuries each year, with long term disability affecting families and healthcare systems far beyond the initial crash.

Public health research shows that the most effective safety improvements come from system level interventions, rather than individual behavior. Policies such as seat belt laws and speed management, and drunk driving regulation lowered fatalities because they changed the environment in which people travel. Autonomy has the potential to be the next major system level intervention. However, the scale of its public health benefit depends on how and where autonomous systems are deployed.

🚍 The Public Health Impact Depends on Mode Shift, Not Just Technology

While autonomous vehicles can reduce crash severity at the vehicle level, the overall public health benefit depends on the modes they replace. Private cars, even if autonomous, carry greater risk simply because they place more vehicles on the road and expose travelers to higher impact environments. In contrast, public transportation is one of the safest ways to travel per passenger mile, with significantly lower injury rates than private cars.

Research from the Mineta Transportation Institute shows that shifting commuters from private cars to buses or rail reduces population level injury rates because transit consolidates movement into fewer vehicles and reduces exposure to risky intersections and high-speed conditions. The World Health Organization Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023 also identifies mode shift away from private car use as one of the most effective strategies for reducing road traffic deaths and improving public health outcomes.

This is why deployment strategy matters. If autonomous vehicles primarily replace private car travel, the impact on injury reduction can be significant. But if they pull riders away from buses and trains, which are already extremely safe, the public health benefit diminishes. Simulation research from National Center for Sustainable Transportation further reinforces this dynamic. When robotaxis replaced transit trips in regional travel models, total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) increased and system level safety benefits weakened. When automation supported shared transit services instead, VMT fell and high-risk trips declined.

The conclusion is clear. The public health potential of autonomy depends not only on safer driving systems, but on how and where they are deployed. Deployment approaches that reduce total vehicle volume and strengthen the safest modes of travel create the largest population level benefits. This is where shared autonomous transit becomes more than a mobility strategy. It becomes a tool for creating safer streets and healthier communities.

🔧 Imagry’s Approach: Autonomy Built for Shared Mobility

At Imagry we see clear public health potential in autonomy when it supports shared mobility rather than individual vehicle use. Our HD mapless autonomous driving platform is built for transit environments, where higher occupancy and predictable operations can translate into broader safety benefits. By enabling modes that move more people with fewer vehicles, the system aligns with the outcomes cities prioritize: reduced crash exposure, more consistent performance, and mobility that delivers more value per mile.

Imagry’s system offers several key advantages for transit agencies and fleet operators:

• No special infrastructure requirements. Our AI-based approach removes the need for LiDAR, HD-maps, and specialized roads. This makes deployment faster, more flexible, and well suited to dynamic transit environments.
• Safety at the core: Ours is the only company that passed NCAP safety scenarios testing with an autonomous bus.
• Share-ready from day one. The technology is optimized for predictable, high frequency operations, making it ideal for shuttles, microtransit, fixed route services, and other shared mobility formats.
• 1/3 the cost of many AV alternatives. At roughly $70K per roboshuttle vehicle, Imagry is significantly more cost-effective than other options (which exceed $200K per vehicle), leading to real world scalability for public fleets.
• White label flexibility. Imagry’s solution is fully brand agnostic. Transit agencies and operators can deploy autonomous services under their own brand while relying on Imagry’s technology stack.

While much of the AV industry has focused on individual convenience, the real public health breakthrough will come from autonomy that supports density, equity, and safer city operations. Imagry’s platform is built for that future.

Autonomous Mobility Video Spotlight

Watch this video to see how Imagry software is promoting autonomous bus projects in mixed traffic on public roads.

Autonomous Mobility News & Events

Click here to see the latest news and events featuring Imagry’s autonomous driving solutions.

Autonomous Mobility Career Opportunities

We’re building more than autonomy. We’re building a team that dares to do what others say is impossible.

We value people who chase hard problems not credit. Who ask better questions. Who stay curious. Who care about the mission, not job titles. And we know that to build the future, we need all kinds of minds.

If that sounds like you, we’d love to meet you.

See our open positions here.

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