Making autonomous driving available to the visually impaired

30.09.2019

Lyft, Aptiv and the National Federation of the Blind collaborate to offer autonomous driving to the blind and low vision rider community. The Lyft App gives blind travellers the opportunity to drive around with a car constructed by global auto parts company Aptiv without the need to owing it. Lyft and Aptiv offer currently the largest commercial self-driving programme in the U.S. since they have offered more than 50,000 rides so far.

Since a few years, Lyft has been working together with blind support institutions such as the ‘National Federation of the Blind’ and the ‘LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired’. It aims to ensure sharing mobility to blind and low vision riders, protect and reinforce their rights and expand transportation to reach these communities. Therefore, it experiments on Braille guides for self-driving riders such as Braille map and a diagram of Aptiv’s self-driving vehicle.

Advances have been made to the Lyft app, intended at making it more available to blind travellers. Lyft’s service animal policy has been modernised in order to give clearer instructions to Lyft drivers. The improvements are considered to revolutionise the mobility for blind passengers offering opportunities to them that did not exist up to now.