Meet Murphy, Grand Rapids’ First Accessible Autonomous Shuttle
When a May Mobility shuttle is manufactured and sent out into the world, we know that it will do great things — after all, not every autonomous vehicle gets to take real people to work, school, and beyond every day. Last month, we deployed a wheelchair accessible shuttle on our Grand Rapids route. This shuttle is among the first May shuttles to bring the autonomous vehicle revolution to wheelchair users.
Meet Murphy.
A fully autonomous May shuttle, Murphy is equipped with a ramp that automatically extends and retracts with the push of a button. It also has a crash-tested wheelchair restraint system. Inside the vehicle, riders face forward and get the “wow moment” of experiencing their city through a May shuttle’s panoramic glass. Murphy also has enough space for a service animal to ride along.
This is the culmination of months of work to improve on our earlier wheelchair-accessible shuttles. Before Murphy, there was McHale — if you haven’t caught on yet, all of our shuttles get a name that starts with “M”. Our wheelchair-accessible shuttle deployed in Providence, McHale was built with a shorter, manually operated ramp. And even before McHale was Mercy, a shuttle with no autonomy technology that we made just to see if a ramp and wheelchair would fit in one of our shuttles.
Each new shuttle has seen improvements compared to the previous version thanks to valuable feedback from wheelchair users. So far, we have hosted workshops in Columbus, OH, and Grand Rapids, MI, to get feedback and connect with local disability advocate groups. This is very important to us — we don’t want to design products in a bubble.
This summer we celebrated our 100,000th autonomous ride. We hope that our next 100,000 rides (and beyond) are a lot more accessible — and you can help us! If you use a wheelchair and live in Grand Rapids or Providence, keep an eye out for Murphy or McHale, take a (free!) ride, then email us at feedback@maymobility.com with your comments or suggestions.
In a world where riders with disabilities are — sometimes literally — left behind by tech companies, May Mobility will continue to partner with people with disabilities and disability advocate groups at the national level to get everyone where they need to go safely, easily, and with a lot more fun.
